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Nuhi- sorry. In answer to the second part of your post, yes you can change your existing files right now using editbin.exe. Nothing I've read about Microsoft's 4Gt technology says that the OS's kernel specifically needs to have the LAA flag activated, but it would obviously help. And doing this wouldn't mean that the application would actually use 3gb in a standard 32bit XP install. (Or even a modded build like what I propose.) Just like now, most of your apps will never actually use the 2gb that they are allowed. But for everything from file server operations, editing large files, or just playing a memory hungry game like Neverwinter Nights 2 or Dawn of War, you should be able to get a speed increase for those of us who have 3gb or more on their machines. (4gb preferable for this.) Everything that I've read about this says that it can be done to an existing application without anything need to be rebuilt. So, theoretically you could do this to an existing XP install running on a machine. However you would have to find a way to modify files that would normally be loaded into memory during an OS run. One way would be to just copy all of the files currently loaded in memory (Including the kernel.) to a temp folder. Then modify those. Then use a "replace on reboot" action similar to a Microsoft update install. The only thing is that obviously XP would complain on reboot that the new files didn't match it's security requirments. (As in being different from the ones before.) Also, if you use a firewall or antivirus that performs a checksum compare to apps it would also complain. Just an idea to give our OSs a safe and legal boost. alternative

Nuhi! You sir, are a genius. Absolutely needed? No. The idea is to find one of many ways to legally and safely extend Windows XP. Let's be honest here- Microsoft is done with XP. They might have announced that they will extend it's support for awhile, but as far as new innovation for XP, they're done. They want to push the very new and bloated Vista on everybody. (Example- no DirectX 10 for XP.) Eventually we will be forced to switch to using Vista on our main personal or work machines. But until then, most of us will be using XP. What I suggest would be a big project for just a little more horsepower, true. But it's just the sort of tinkering that may be needed. Another project- finding a new standard shell that everyone can use, has most if not all of the special effects we see in Vista, but will read the default Windows program Start Menu just like Explorer currently does now. (So that we won't have to reprogram anything like we currently have to with BlackBox and the like.) One choice could be something based around Mozilla's Gecko engine. Strip Firefox to the bone for performance, change it's default behaviour for manipulating files, and you'd have a shell that can use the current Firefox extension/theme structure- with some modifications of course. Doing things like this and adding them into nLite (Or at least making them an addon.) could overall greatly improve our favourite little OS enough to keep it looking good for some time to come. Just and idea. alternative

Hello all. I've been thinking about Windows XP, and the more that I look at it, the more that I see that the limitations of each version is purposely built in. Which, with the current slow adoption of Vista, is a bad thing. It means that since Windows XP in it's various forms will be with us for some time, we will have to find new ways of stretching it's capabilities safely AND legally. In this regard, one of the limitations of 32bit XP is the fact that your programs cannot use more than 2gb of memory space, no matter what switches you change in the boot.ini or what you change in the registry. Rock solid set in stone...sort of. Visual Studio has had a tool in it since I think version 4 or 5 called editbin.exe. This is a command line only tool which has an interesting and overlooked feature- it can flip the Large Address Aware bit (Know in Vista as LAA.). Meaning that a program can suddenly be made to be able to use 3gb of system memory. (Under true 64bit XP this app would be able to use up to 4gb, and if it was a 64bit app itself running under a 64bit OS with the LAA bit enabled, 8tb.) All this according to the Microsoft site itself under the heading of 4Gt technology. Now here come the experiment for some brave soul to try. Visual Studio 2005 is available as a free demo. I'm assuming that the editbin.exe tool is in there. Has anyone thought about taking an nLited XP build just prior to making an ISO from the files, and using this tool on everything? Obviously you would have to open the CABs and then repackage them afterwards. And I'm not saying that using this on every single install file would be easy. You would probably have to use something like AutoIt to take care of the bulk in a reasonable amount of time. But if this worked, you would be able to create a 32bit Windows XP install that legally and safely could use larger amounts of system memory, just like the 64bit and server editions of the product. More than likely though, this would result in a kernel that wouldn't be recognized as being valid if you ever tried to update such an OS since it's overall structure wouldn't match a standard Windows XP build. But still, a worthy experiment for some brave soul. Just a wacky idea. alternative