Windows 3GB limit and applications using > 2GB

Windows servers with more than 3 GB ram should have a special setting in their boot.ini. This is examples where %systemroot% is c:\winnt\ even on Windows 2003:

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise"
/noexecute=optout /fastdetect /3GB /PAE

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server" /fastdetect /PAE /3GB

Also after booting with this setting, check your application is actually enabled to use more than 2 GB mem, that is, if you want it to :-) You should be able to enable an application to use more than 2 gb. Microsoft has a nice description:

You can use the Imagecfg.exe file to provide selective use of application memory
tuning in Microsoft Windows 2000. Executable files that can access the 3-GB
address space must have the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE bit set in their image headers. You can set this bit by using the Imagecfg.exe utility; this
utility is included on the Windows 2000 Server Supplement One Resource Kit
CD-ROM . For example, to modify an executable file that is named Test.exe, use
the following command syntax:
Imagecfg -l test.exe

You can check an exe file by running imagecfg test.exe and look for this string:
Image can handle large (>2GB) addresses

For your reference my copy of imagecfg.exe has this info:
5.0.1556.1
835A3281EAC25F18B9A859F68776F167 imagecfg.exe

Of course this will not be a problem when everyone is running 64 bit, which will happen sooner or later. As you might know Windows Server 2008 is the last version to support 32 bit.