palhan

Yes, a full format writes zeros to all sectors. You are here: Microsoft Software Products - Discussion & Support > Windows Vista

There is also a bit more translation overhead in 64bit mode. "run an executable code block with an address above the 32bit boundary" is also not entirely true. That only applies when you are using AWE.

Since software reference only virtual memory that will never be an issue. A VA can point anywhere in physical memory - also above 4G even if the registers are only 32bit wide. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...PAE/pae_os.mspx 1. Server Consolidation A PAE-enabled operating system should be capable of utilizing all physical memory provided by the system to load multiple applications; for example, App#1, App#2, App #N, each consisting of 4 GB (maximum) of virtual address. In a non-PAE enabled system, the result can be a great deal of paging, since maximum physical memory in the system is limited to 4 GB. With the additional physical memory supported under PAE mode, an operating system can keep more of these applications in memory without paging. This is valuable in supporting server consolidation configurations, where support of multiple applications in a single server is typically required. Note that no application changes are required to support this capability.

About wiping... doing a full format will overwrite all the sectors on the chosen partition.