IIS6 on Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition x32 and Memory

Question

Hi, I have ASP.NET 2.0 applications running on 32 bit Windows 2K3 Standard edition with 4GB of RAM. I want to upgrade the server to Enterprise edition and add more memory to a total of 6GB. I assume that I will need to enable PAE extensions to do this.

How much of this extra 2GB will be usable to the W3WP worker processes? The root issue is that 2 of the WPs are exceeding 900MB every so often and causing OutOfMemory Exceptions.

The alternative is that I get a new server and move half the applications to it, which is a more expensive and time consuming option.

Thanks

Answer 1

You will not need the PAE extensions. As long as you don't have a WP that needs more than 2GB of its own.

Answer 2

In order to use the extra 2GB /PAE must be enabled in the boot.ini. Each WP will then still be limited to 2GB physical memory.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283037 http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/08/20/217772.aspx