.NET: LARGEADDRESSAWARE has no effect

Question

I wanna use more than 1.2 GB RAM.

So I tried the editbin /LAGEADRESSAWARE command.

The command executes with no error but still I get out of memory exceptions at 1.2 GB.

Now I ask myself: I have several exe files in my project. Which exe file(s) must be processed:

1. all exe files
2. the entry assembly [1]
3. the executing assembly [1]

[1]: Term entry/executing as defined in System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly/GetExecutingAssembly)

I tried 2) and 3) and it has no effect.

The output of the editbin is just:

2>  Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Editor Version 11.00.61030.0
2>  Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Is this the right output?

Answer 1

You tried to allocate a single byte array to determine how much memory you could allocate. Single arrays are limited to 2^30 elements. /LARGEADDRESSAWARE doesn't change that.

Try allocating a list of 100mb arrays.

Answer 2

I reopened the issue. To answer my questions completely

1) It did not work with x86. I change all projects to use 'any cpu' now. When setting up the project i had problems with some 2.0 third party lib but this seems to work now, maybe with a new framework version (4.5). so i'm able to switch to "any cpu" now.

2) It seems, only the entry assembly must be edited with editbin.

3) Project setting "32 Bit bevorzugen" must be disabled.

4) Visual Studio Host Process must be deactivated.

5) Actually for most projects it wasnt enough to just make the settings. I needed to switch on "32 bit bevorzugen", recompile, switch off again, recompile and then it magically works. seems there is some sporadic problem in the build process of VS 2012 i use..

Answer 3

To make sure it works, u need to use dumpbin, located in the same folder as editbin. It displays information about Common Object File Format (COFF) binary files. When /largeaddressaware is enabled, the we can see extra header "Application can handle large (>2GB) addresses"

               14C machine(x86)
                 3 number of sections
          5AB8D688 time date stamp Mon Mar 26 13:16:24 2018
                 0 file pointer to symbol table
                 0 number of symbols
                E0 size of optional header
               122 characteristics
                     Executable
                     Application can handle large(>2GB) addresses
                     32 bit word machine

if not enabled(default):

  FILE HEADER VALUES
               14C machine(x86)
                 3 number of sections
          5AB8D734 time date stamp Mon Mar 26 13:19:16 2018
                 0 file pointer to symbol table
                 0 number of symbols
                E0 size of optional header
               102 characteristics
                     Executable
                     32 bit word machine

From cmd:

>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\dumpbin" /headers C:\MyFile.exe

From VS post-buid event:

call "$(DevEnvDir)..\tools\vsvars32.bat"
editbin /largeaddressaware "$(TargetPath)"
dumpbin /headers "$(TargetPath)"

if there will be some errors then use your environment verion direclty:

call "$(VS100COMNTOOLS)..\tools\vsvars32.bat" // for vs 2012.
or
call "$(VS120COMNTOOLS)..\tools\vsvars32.bat" // for vs 2013.

or with conditions:

IF  EXIST  "%VS100COMNTOOLS%"  CALL  "%VS100COMNTOOLS%vsvars32.bat" 
IF  EXIST  "%VS110COMNTOOLS%"  CALL  "%VS110COMNTOOLS%vsvars32.bat" 
IF  EXIST  "%VS120COMNTOOLS%"  CALL  "%VS120COMNTOOLS%vsvars32.bat" 
IF  EXIST  "%VS140COMNTOOLS%"  CALL  "%VS140COMNTOOLS%vsvars32.bat" 
IF  EXIST  "%VS150COMNTOOLS%"  CALL  "%VS150COMNTOOLS%vsvars32.bat"  

(update) VS 2017:

call "%vsappiddir%..\tools\vsdevcmd.bat"