You mentioned that you hoped adding RAM would boost system resources, so I presume you're running Win 9x/ME.
I'm afraid available system resources have nothing to do with how much RAM you have installd, and everything to do with how crappy the Win 9x/ME line of 'operating' systems evolved out of Windows 3.0.
On 9x/ME, system resources are finite, and it doesn't take too much, say Photoshop and a few IE windows, or if you really want to run low, Homesite, and you're in trouble. You could have 10 Gb of RAM and you'd still run out.
The only way to move beyond it is to move beyond the bastard children of Windows 3 and use Win 2000 or XP, which don't have resource limits (when you run out of memory, you really have run out of memory and the operating system will let you know about it

).
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