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I recently found out, that a server got a 32 bit installation of SQL Server 2012 rather than 64bit, and it is running out of memory now.

Can I have this 32 bit installation use more memory using locked pages?

I do not know much about this. I've read this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2659143/en-us bit I am still not clear if this will help, what needs to be done etc

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How long are you going to fight this thing, instead of doing the right thing and installing a proper, 64-bit instance? –  Aaron Bertrand Dec 15 '13 at 16:00
32 bit still exists in serverland? –  swasheck Dec 16 '13 at 2:31
we had trouble getting a 64 bit version on time, but we made it. –  Greg Bala Dec 20 '13 at 22:29

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up vote 7 down vote accepted


In the past, my answer would have been (a heavily qualified) "yes".

Using AWE (address windowing extensions) would enable up to 64GB memory. Unfortunately (from your point of view, perhaps) 32-bit AWE was removed from the database engine starting with SQL Server 2012.

In previous versions, 32-bit SQL Server running on a 64-bit version of Windows (WOW mode) was a supported configuration but one that I never encountered personally. Anecdotally, such configurations were often problematic; if you enjoy tracking down weird problems, 32-bit AWE SQL Server on 64-bit Windows is for you.

My very strong recommendation would be to use 64-bit SQL Server 2012 instead.

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