The computer has more than 4 GB of memory
The information in this article applies to:
Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Application-tier server
Data-tier server
Health check
The Best Practices Analyzer tool for Team Foundation Server queries a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class (Win32_ComputerSystem) to determine the current value of the TotalPhysicalMemory key. A warning appears if that value is larger than 4294967296 but smaller than 6442450944, which indicates that the computer has between 4 and 6 gigabytes (GB) of memory installed.
On a computer that has 4 GB or more of physical memory, Team Foundation Server will not use any more than 3 GB. Therefore, if the computer is dedicated to running Team Foundation Server only, you derive no benefit if you install more than 4 GB of memory.
Note
As a recommended best practice, you should dedicate a computer to running Team Foundation Server.
Also, the more physical RAM you have on your computer, the more address entries in the operating system kernel are required to perform the necessary virtual to physical mapping. This configuration can cause instability by reducing both the paged pool memory and the free page table entries (PTE) that are available to the system. As an example, a computer that has 8 GB of physical RAM will have 3,000 fewer free system PTEs and a 30 MB reduction in the maximum paged pool size than a computer that has only 4 GB of physical RAM.
To resolve this issue, you must perform one of the following two solutions. You must either reduce the amount of memory to 4 GB, or you must reduce the available memory to 4 GB. You reduce the available memory by setting the BurnMemory parameter in the Boot.ini file in Windows Server 2003 or the removememory option in the boot configuration data (BCD) store in Windows Server 2008. For more information about the parameters that you can use in the Boot.ini file, see the article 833721, "Available switch options for the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Boot.ini files" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. For an overview of how Boot.ini parameters map to BCD options, see the Microsoft Web site.
Required Permissions
To perform these procedures, you must be a member of the Administrators security group on the computer where you will manage the boot settings.
To remove excess memory in Windows Server 2003
Log on to the computer that the error message specifies.
Click Start, and then click Command Prompt.
Change the directory to the Windows system directory.
The default location is Drive:WINNT\system32.
At the command prompt, type the following command, specify the amount of memory (in megabytes) to remove from the total available memory that the operating system can use, and then press ENTER:
bootcfg /BurnMemory Megabytes
Restart the computer for the change to take effect.
To remove excess memory in Windows Server 2008
Log on to the computer that the error message specifies.
Click Start, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
At the command prompt, type the following command, specify the amount of memory (in megabytes) to remove from the total available memory that the operating system can use, and then press ENTER:
bcdedit /set removememoryMegabytes
Restart the computer for the change to take effect.
If you are running other applications that require the extra memory, you can download and install a software upgrade that will help prevent data storage failures that might occur when more than 4 GB of RAM is available. For more information about the upgrade, see article 834628, "Data is corrupted when PAE is enabled on a Windows Server 2003-based computer" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.