Hello,

First of all, I'd like to know; Is it bad to format your computer more than so-often? If so, why and what are the consequences?

My second question is: I've got a computer that has 4 gigs of RAM. I've been told that I shouldn't install the normal version of Windows XP because it won't detect and use all of these 4 RAM and it'll be a waste, so to install Windows 64 bit instead, so I did when I purchased the PC. (I have the Windows XP, and my brother had the 64 bit, so I used his disc since he doesn't have a PC anymore.)

Now I'm considering formatting my PC and am wondering, is it true that I should only install Windows XP 64 bit or can I just download any Windows XP and it'll work just fine and my 4 gigs of ram won't go to waste?

Thank you in advance,
Karl

P.S; I don't want Vista. ^_^

You can wipe the computer until the cows come home. It inflicts no major damage to the drive, in theory the drive wears out more quickly in a PC without enough physical memory than it would in most other circumstances. This is on the basis that when Windows needs more memory than there is physically installed, it'll use the hard drive as extra memory thus putting it under extra load and theoretically leading it to fail quicker. In a lot of cases I've seen constant thrashing of the drive would seem to keep it alive longer, ironically.

Under any 32-bit operating system the maximum amount of memory available is between 3.2Gb and 3.5Gb. A 64-bit operating system will see the full 4Gb but realistically with this amount of memory performance-wise 512Mb of difference is pretty much nothing to write home about.

Thank you for the answer!

However, considering we're in 2008 and I'm mainly a gamer, I know of a few games that will soon come out with 4 gigs of RAM as minimum requirement. Would that mean that me being on Windows XP 32-bit won't be able to play it despite me having 4 gigs of RAM since Windows 32-bit can't detect all 4 gigs of ram?

What games would these be then?

Contract of confidentiality forbids me to say, but that's not very relevant to the topic either way, is it?

Either way.. would anyone know? ^^