No Win32 API for you

There's something of a buzz going on within the world of IT concerning MS Windows Vista, which apparently restricts GNU GCC executables to 32MB. Is this by design or a bug? But, knowing Balmer's hatred for all users of Free Open Source Software. Well you know....

Executables created for the Wintel environment, using the GNU GCC compilers and language standards (but not linking to the Win32 API), are subject to failure (or performance degradation) when executed in Microsoft Windows Vista, because Vista arbitrarily restricts the memory space for the GCC executable to 32 MB (33,554,432 bytes).

Attempts to allocate more memory than this using the malloc(...) function (or related functions, such as calloc(...)) will fail. This limitation applies whether the application is executed with the Run command, within a Command Prompt box (DOS box), or with the Start command. This limitation does not appear in Windows XP, Windows 98SE, or standalone DOS; the exact same executable, running under Windows XP SP2 or Win98SE, is capable of allocating several hundred megabytes of physical memory (if present on the machine). The limitation appears to apply to any compiler and linker not employing Microsoft's proprietary Win32 API.