4gb ddr2 ram install windows 7 only showing 1.87 usable

Petey7 said:

Since it hasn't been mentioned, I'll go ahead and say this. Go to Admin Tools in Control Panel. Open System Configuration. Go to the boot tab and press advanced options. Make sure both boxes at the top are unchecked. Another person with your problem posted a couple days ago and they went from ~2.8 GB usable to 3.8GB usable. They had a 64-bit OS so they could get more than 3.5. You will likely be stuck with 3.0-3.5 unless you switch to 64-bit Windows.

Thanks Petey7 - brilliant tip, couldn't understand why shoving in another 2GB left it still showing 1.87GB instead of 4GB. This worked a treat, although still only got 3GB as it's a rubbish old Asus laptop so I ended up removing the new 2GB and putting just 1GB instead.

I have come to the conclusion after many years that 64 bit performs better on Win7 with 4gb RAM or more, even if the .5gb deficit is not fully taken up by hardware. It has to do with RAM utilization which can be observed in your Process Monitor.