Windows - too much RAM? Is this the root cause of many problems

Question

I know this is going to sound counter intuitive, but I have reason to believe that there are problems with Windows systems with large amounts of memory (4 gb, if not something less than this).
Why? I just recently bought a new notebook - fully maxed out for performance in every conceivable way - including 4 gb RAM.
But since the first day, I noticed a problem with a particular piece of pre-installed software where MSVCR80.DLL would keep crashing everytime specific programs started to run. I liased with the vendor and went through all the usual troubleshooting, plus reinstalled Windows from both the factory config and from original disks more times than I care to remember but the problem remained. They replaced all the hardware, and the problem continues. The vendor tried to reproduce the problems internally but couldn't. (So note, none of these problems are Lightroom problems - I haven't even installed Lightroom on this new machine yet).
About the same time I noticed a couple of mentions of this same DLL in a number of threads on this site:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?7@@.3bc44c18/3
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc489fe
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc4644c/10
And reading these, you see people who have 4 or 3 Gb RAM also experiencing weird problems.
Last night I was working through what could be different and decided to rip out one of the 2 Gb RAM modules in my new computer - taking it down to (only) 2 Gb RAM, and suddenly the software that I was having problems with suddenly works correctly. Reinstalled the second RAM module and it stops working and crashes in the same way as did initially. So in this case, the problem is definitely having this much RAM.
So as a test, it would be interesting to see if some of the people experiencing problems in Lightroom (on Windows) with over 2 Gb memory reduce the amount of installed memory and see if the problems in Lightroom goes away as well?
I'm also debating whether the problem is actually a software problem in the MSVCR80.DLL, or whether there is something more sinister in the hardware - because 4Gb RAM doesn't give 4Gb usable RAM because of the mapping of various hardware into memory (video cards for instance) - on my new notebook with Vista it was reporting it had 3.5Gb usable RAM - if you search on the web you find some Vista users with 4Gb RAM showing less than 3Gb usable RAM within Vista - so there are definitely some hardware dependencies going on here as well - some machines with 4Gb RAM might work, and some with different hardware configs with 4Gb RAM might not.
It will be interesting to see what results people get with less memory.

Answer 1

Hi everyone
I'd like to thank everyone for trying to help me with this problem, but that's not the reason that I posted the original message.
The problem I'm experiencing is not bad hardware or a faulty software installation. It is a 100% reproducible problem which displays when there is 4 Gb RAM in the machine and doesn't when there is 2 Gb RAM - with no other changes occurring except this change of memory.
The old DLL conflict issue apparently is not so much of an issue with this file these days because each application can have a manifest which describes the precise version of the supporting files and Windows will maintain these seperate versions and present the appropriate version to the correct app. Regardless, this doesn't behave like a DLL conflict because the only change is that of memory.
I agree that 32bit operating systems should not have a problem with 4 Gb RAM, but clearly in my case there is. And in the initial Lightroom topics that I cited where others were experiencing similar issues with the same DLL, and they also had machines with over 2 Gb RAM.
The problem may not be that all machines with over 2 Gb RAM have problems, but there may be a unique set of interactions between various pieces of hardware / software / BIOS / installed software that is causing it on specific configurations. The problem may or may not lie with the actual DLL that is reporting the crash, I just don't know.
The reason I posted this initially was because whilst investigating an unrelated application, I happened upon a strong correlation of specific problems with this DLL across multiple different applications (the security application that I noticed the problem with, reports here in Lightroom, but if you Google you'll find references to a large range of other applications, including PS3), and the common theme for everyone who has had these problems appears that they've had high end machines with over 2 Gb RAM. Further in my case with the relevant security application I'm having problems with I have proof that the problem disappears if you reduce the memory.
My intent was really just to hone the number of scenarios where we know this problem either occurs or doesn't. I'm curious as to:
- anyone who has over 2 Gb RAM who is having problems with Lightroom, and seeing if the same problems occur if they reduced the amount of memory in their system. There are certainly some people on these forums who have been very vocal as to problems - I just want to see if the Lightroom problems these people are experiencing are a sympton of some more fundamental issue.
- anyone who has over 2 Gb RAM but is operating successfully with no problems whatsoever (forums have a selection bias whereby you predominantly hear from people who have problems, not those that don't have problems) - I'd like to balance this out a bit by having people who are having no problems also jump into the discussion.
- anyone who has less than 2 Gb RAM who have had Lightroom report problems with MSVCR80.DLL (this is the control)
If we can narrow down the circumstances in which it occurs, it will be much easier for the developers to be able to reproduce and then trace and eliminate the problem. But if everyone just keeps going "it doesn't work" then we'll never get anywhere.
Thanks
Greg