Segmentation is a good thing also from the consumer/buyer viewpoint but "limitations" like this max O/S memory limit are absolutely spinelessly crippled blatant rip-offs, and have no correlation with the actual work required to make those features.
The same goes for the stupid restriction of the maximum of ten simultaneous network connections (can't remember whether it was inbound or both?) imposed in some basic Windows (Home? Professional? vs. Server?) editions.
An operating system shouldn't limit the capabilities of available hardware. They could reasonably decide to not support some heavy-duty server hardware at all except in the server edition. Or they could give the server edition a better I/O scheduler (that can handle large loads) or something to make it a must if you want to use Windows on a server.
But if I have a network adapter in my box I expect to be able to max it out in all imaginable ways regardless of the O/S "edition". Or use as much memory as I can physically fit in my box.
The same goes for the stupid restriction of the maximum of ten simultaneous network connections (can't remember whether it was inbound or both?) imposed in some basic Windows (Home? Professional? vs. Server?) editions.
An operating system shouldn't limit the capabilities of available hardware. They could reasonably decide to not support some heavy-duty server hardware at all except in the server edition. Or they could give the server edition a better I/O scheduler (that can handle large loads) or something to make it a must if you want to use Windows on a server.
But if I have a network adapter in my box I expect to be able to max it out in all imaginable ways regardless of the O/S "edition". Or use as much memory as I can physically fit in my box.