In 32bit why is the address space limit 2^31? instead of 2^32?
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The address space is not limited to 2^31. The address space is 2^32. What you are referring to is that the kernel reserves the upper 2GB leaving applications the lower 2GB.
That’s simply an implementation detail of 32 bit Windows. In fact you can run Windows in /3GB mode in which case applications can access 3GB of memory.