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Is it possible to use > 4GB of memory with vmWare + 2 or more 32 bits os?

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I have no idea, but that's a fascinating question, and I'd like to know the answer as well. – Myrddin Emrys Dec 23 '09 at 18:24
What version of VMware? ESX or....? – Dave M Dec 23 '09 at 18:59
Any vmWare version or any other virtual machine software. – tony-p-lee Dec 23 '09 at 19:14
Not certain but as I recall VMWare is limited by the host OS, so if you've installed it on 32 WinXP for instance, it's constrained to the memory limit of the host (3GB max). Been too long since I've looked at it though. – BBlake Dec 23 '09 at 20:15
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In a 32bit OS as the host, no. If you're using something like ESX(i), then you should be able to give 3.2GB to each host machine, so use over 4GB in total.

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Thanks for the info – tony-p-lee Dec 31 '09 at 18:55
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Yes, as long as your host OS is 64-bit. The baseline of how much ram VMware lets you allocate is based on the host OS.

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I agree with muncherelli above. – Scott McClenning Feb 6 '11 at 4:30
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You need to be running Windows 2003 Server edition. It allows you to set a thing called "Lock Pages In Memory" policy. With that policy, SQL Server is able to go beyond the 2GB limit using AWE memory handling. Whether or not VMWare has the same capability, I don't know... but it is theoretically possible.

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Yes, you can use more than 4GB memory with vmware on 32bit linux host, but you are limited to memory below 4GB on windows XP 32bit. See:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/171606

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