Necessary boot.ini change when using over 2GB RAM

Symptom

In Windows 2003, various problems can occur with the Dialogic System Release software if the server has over 2 GB of RAM and is using the default boot.ini file.  Most commonly, BSOD will occur upon startup of the drivers in DCM, but other symptoms have also been observed, such as corrupt audio during calls, and application exceptions.

Reason for the problem

Dialogic does not support Windows Physical Address Extension (PAE) on servers with over 2 GB of RAM, and has trouble resolving memory addresses.

Workaround

With such a server configuration, Windows PAE needs to be disabled to prevent further problems.  This can be done by opening the boot.ini file with a text editor and adding the appropriate flag.  The boot.ini file is located in the root directory (usually C:\boot.ini).  For most systems, the necessary flag is /NOPAE.  For example, this might be the original contents in the boot.ini:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise" /fastdetect 

Add the /nopae flag to the end so it looks like:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise" /fastdetect /nopae 

For systems running an application which employs software data execution prevention (DEP), the necessary flag to add is /execute.  This will disable both PAE and DEP.  One such example of an application which uses software DEP is Vertical's Televantage Server.

Glossary of Acronyms / Terms

GB = Gigabytes
BSOD = Blue Screen of Death:  A term used when Windows throws up a blue screen reporting a fatal exception, and it is necessary to reboot the server
DCM = Dialogic Configuration Manager
PAE = Physical Address Extension
DEP = Data Execution Prevention:  A security feature which prevents memory from being altered in the executable range of an application's code 

Related Documentation

Boot Parameters to Configure DEP and PAE - Windows drivers