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Ram Patch for Windows 2000?


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The title pretty much says it all, as usual.

Is there a ram patch in existence for Windows 2000? I've found many exist for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and even 95/98/98SE/ME but have found none for Windows 2000. 

Considering Windows 2000's cult-following, I'm surprised I have yet to find one!

Edited by ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~
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The extended core contains the "Windows 2000 RAM Patch" and because full PAE support exists in the kernel (unlike XP SP2/3) it is very stable.

The only known issue is it will make a machine running ZoneAlarm 6.5 firewall blue screen on boot. When trying to install it with the extended core already present a blue screen also occurs.

You can use Kerio Personal Firewall 2.1.5 which is more granular and lightweight.

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Make sure that your drivers, and especially the graphics driver, support PAE. I do not know for now, but in the past in my testing only the NVIDIA drivers worked, while both AMD and Intel drivers did not.

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  • 1 month later...
On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 12:08 AM, blackwingcat said:

The RAM Patch can make use Windows 2000 memory 64G :3

Just so I and everyone else can be clear on this. Does this apply to all versions of Windows 2000? Obviously different versions support different amounts of RAM. So if I use the /PAE switch on Windows 2000 Professional, I can still use Physical Address Extension with no issues? I'm building a different system soon and will be starting out with 8GBs of RAM but the motherboard can support up to 32GBs.

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Yes. I have 12 GB of RAM and a CPU with 12 threads with Windows 2000 Professional without issue, and @bluebolt has 32 GB and 20 threads. If not for the extended core (or any other CPU/RAM patches), those with such high-end hardware would have to secure a copy of Datacenter Server (which was only distributed with selected high-end servers; I've seen licences quoted at over 10 000 USD at release).

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I made a thread on this a very long time ago, I think it was before BlackWingCat even made the RAM patch for the extended core, that or it was in extremely early stages. Advanced Server gave me issues with PAE whereas I didn't have sound afterwards. Just for fun, I decided to try PAE again along with my new video card, a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650, that I received in the mail yesterday for my new computer build.

Well, disaster struck, big time. It was probably partially my fault too but it went so far as to corrupt my registry. system once again somehow decided to go bang and I was unbootable. No problem, I thought! Yeah, I thought. NTBackup backs up my registry twice a week so I should be able to just open it up in NTBackup and restore via Windows 7.

WRONG! It backed my stuff up alright, but it did not back up the registry files. I'm assuming because they were "in use" possibly, they were just skipped over. So my disaster plan failed and I have learned my lesson. I'm debating on what steps to take now because I want to ensure I always have recent registry backups. I used the backups in the repair folder but that's just a big mess but at least I was able to get into the OS again. I've just about got all my files backed up and since I have barebones and the internet works, I'm just going to leave it as is until my new stuff comes and I can build my new computer and then I'll wipe the drive and start over again. On the plus side, the video card works great!

20 hours ago, win32 said:

Yes. I have 12 GB of RAM and a CPU with 12 threads with Windows 2000 Professional without issue, and @bluebolt has 32 GB and 20 threads. If not for the extended core (or any other CPU/RAM patches), those with such high-end hardware would have to secure a copy of Datacenter Server (which was only distributed with selected high-end servers; I've seen licences quoted at over 10 000 USD at release).

If it's not too much trouble, what are your hardware specs, at least your video/sound card. I'm assuming you and bluebolt have no problems with any of it. I ordered a new (used) SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty  so I'm hoping that it'll be able to use the unofficial drivers and therefor will have no issues when it comes to PAE vs the official Creative drivers.

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I am using an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 and Realtek onboard audio.

Did you install anything else in the same session as the extended core? That has badly messed up things for me in the past.

Edited by win32
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I don't really think so, but I cannot recall for sure. I'm working on getting my stuff backed up right now and making a new install disk with the newest HFSLIP package and even though I wasn't going to worry about wiping the drive and reinstalling, I may just do it anyway so I can sort of practice up and know what I'm doing when I build my new computer. I do know though that when I returned from enabling PAE, I tried playing music via Windows Media Player and it completely froze the computer so I'm thinking it's the sound driver that caused the issue.

I honestly forgot about my smaller SSD hard drive with the same installation of Windows 2000 on it until today. Even though it's not "up to date", I could've hooked it up and restored the registry that way since when I changed to a bigger hard drive, I cloned the original and then expanded it, that was probably last year sometime, maybe around September. But as long as I have access to my files and can back it all up, that's all I really care about. I'd rather try all these new drivers on a clean system anyway. But I will definitely make sure that I always restart after every single update, especially kernel and core.

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I have Windows 2000 reinstalled but same issue. I'm using extended core v14b, I believe the higher ones caused issues with dual monitor support. Enabled PAE and I could see all 6GBs of RAM that I have right now, but there was no sound at all. It didn't look like it was "disabled", but it just didn't work, you couldn't hear anything. Once I removed the /pae switch and rebooted, it started working again.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Update: So I've been using PAE on Windows 2000 for at least a week now and all is going well!

Here's the catch, you cannot use Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi with it otherwise you'll have no sound and you'll run the risk of corrupting your whole system. That's what was going on with me. I don't know about other older SoundBlasters but I read online that X-Fi definitely doesn't work, not even with unofficial modded drivers.

So far all I know that you can use is Realtek Onboard audio. I don't know if there are other pieces of sound hardware that can work with drivers for Windows 2000/XP or not. Anyone with different brands of cards that is willing to try PAE and report back on what happens, that would be awesome!

I have also enabled this in Firefox and its performance has improved greatly: https://fossbytes.com/how-to-make-firefox-faster-by-enabling-multi-process-e10s-manually/

I set my processes to 6. I have 16GBs of RAM so I'm totally not shy of it using a lot of RAM for a smoother experience on the web.

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