Linux creates virtual memory pages for every program to use, and the OS handles mapping the virtual addresses to genuine hardware addresses, correct?
But how does Windows do this? Do Windows programs actually have memory that translates to real hardware addresses? I'm also aware that windows can use hard disk memory when RAM is over used, and this process is again called virtual memory, but I believe this is an entirely different concept?
Windows and Linux (at least on Intel 32/64 bit systems) both implement virtual memory using the same mechanism: hardware supported page tables. The OS and the hardware cooperate together to do the address mapping.
The entire concept of separating the logical addresses a program uses from the physical addresses is what is called virtual memory. The use of the hard disk as a backing store is an implementation of virtual memory that uses a swap file to increase the amount of virtual memory to an amount greater than the physical memory installed in the system.
Virtual memory is a pretty deep and wide subject. Maybe start with this Wiki article an Memory Management and then hit the googles for a deeper understanding.
