SQL Server Installation: Is it 32 or 64 bit?
This post lists two different ways to check (the first is the @@version, which shows you are running a 32-bit version of SQL Server), but to save clicking through,
select serverproperty('edition')
The result will look something like:
32-bit: Enterprise Edition
64-bit: Developer Edition (64-bit)
You can also use
USE master
SELECT @@Version
That will display something like -
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 - 11.0.2100.60 (X64)
Feb 10 2012 19:39:15
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
Enterprise Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7601: Service Pack 1)
In your install medium do you see an x64 or an x86 directory? If not I believe your medium will be 32-bit only.
This will explain why you only have a 32-bit version running on your 64-bit OS.
Is the disk a boxed purchase or from a MSDN or Technet download?
I won't comment on whether or not you have 64bit or 32. You ask about AWE, so I'll answer that part as I have some experience here.
I've used AWE in similar situations and it has worked well for us temporarily.
In the end we did move to a fully 64 bit system of course, but AWE allowed us to use more RAM. Also look at the /3GB switch which goes in boot.ini if I recall. If you can test your install with AWE enabled before you swap that would obviously be beneficial. We asked our managed hosting provider to turn it on, and they had a DBA work with us who had some experience with that before. We scheduled the change over an early morning maintenance window, made the changes, rebooted, and started testing. It bought us quite a lot of performance actually too.
From what I recall, you could not easily see how much memory SQL Server used - the taskmgr.exe didn't tell the whole story. You have to run perfmon and actually drill in to the SQL server counters to see how much RAM SQL is actually getting access to.
I'd suggest you read up first, but it's a good route to go until you can resolve the situation more permanently.
http://blogs.msdn.com/chadboyd/archive/2007/03/24/pae-and-3gb-and-awe-oh-my.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190673.aspx