4 meg ram

You'd not necessarily benefit from ALL of the extra 2GB, but you'd end up with approximately 3.25GB of addressable RAM.

The 'puter would almost certainly benefit but you wouldn't (in truth) have a 4GB computer.

I would tend to agree with your IT guy.

A 32 bit OS (Vista or XP) has a maximum address space of 4GB. However, some system overhead uses at least 750 MB of that 4GB, so the most functional memory you can ever have is 3.25GB.

Now, depending on what hardware is part of your system, the system overhead could be much higher. I have seen reports of as little as 2.5 GB of usable memory.

I have also heard anecdotal reports of having physical memory installed beyond what the OS can use causing system instability and conflicts.

Personally, I install 2 GB of RAM on all of my 32 bit systems.

From a "green" standpoint, whatever installed RAM the system cannot use whether it is 750 MB or 1.5 GB, is doing nothing more than wasting power.

Chas