Windows 7 is very good at taking advantage of the computer hardware. One example is trying to store most of the computer operations on memory so that they run faster. However, there should be some limitations on how much to memory allowed to use at the time because sometimes it takes all the memory for a specific operation leaving no memory for other programs causing a huge lag on the system. In my case disk operations (that includes a lot of writing operations) are the problem. I have 4GB of ram and when it is idle it uses 1.6GB with 2.4GB remaining. When i start just copying a big file from one place to another (not necessarily on the same hard drive), it takes away the remaning ram. Since it takes away the remaining memory, other programs including the OS itself slow down to the point where i can't multi-task at all. Meaning, the disk operation took away all the memory that not even the OS has enough spare memory to switch between windows of opened programs. I believe what Windows 7 is trying to do is to cache the disk operations and read data on the memory --to expand the disk cache and allow more continous disk operations? It seems to be a great idea but it also seems to has its downturn like for example; when copying a file and it says it has 0sec remaining, it actually takes extra 2 or more secs to actually finish. It is because data have not been writen on the disk yet and it would actually have to move the data from the memory to the disk to do the actual operation and then recycle the memory itself. The larger the file, the more extra time it actually takes to finish. Although i am not completely sure, my guess is that part of the problem is cause by the fact that disk read operations has higher priority than write operations. Because writing data is slower reading and read operations happen more often, it seems logical to give read operations higher priority. But if so then it will cache more data than what it recycles; and before we know it, it has taken away all the remaning memory. There should be a balance in read and write priorities specially when it comes to the case where both read and write are equally important like when copying a file from one location to another. I don't think that on the disk itself there is much of a difference between read-read-read-read-write-write-write-write and read-read-write-write-read-read-write-write. But on the memory itself is a huge impact because one will take away all the remaning ram and the other one will take moderately. Another example of this problem will be extracting a compressed file in the background but i can't do anything else because my archiver has taken away all my remaning memory in doing disks operations. It is true that unused ram is useless ram and we should take advantage of it. But it should not take away everything so that not even the OS itself has extra ram to do anything else.

In Task Manager only active tasks under username are: Taskhost, Dwm, *Bootcamp, Explorer, *Msseces(SecEssentials),Taskmgr. In "Run" Msconfig, under Startup Tab, I have 12 items; all but *two of them are disabled. Is 7200 rpm disk available to non desktops these days? In device manager -> disk drive check Policy tab. If you are over a GB of mem use, you must be using 64bit OS. Sad that Sysinternals utilities such as Cacheset do not work in W. 7 and while you can not defrag the pagefile as before, you can get rid of then reallocate it if you want to, which effectively will do same as defrag. Because in my opinion it does not work well/propely no matter what the settings, I disable indexing, unindex 3 OS drives & disable the Windows Search Service. Defragmenting drives can be worth doing after doing Disk Cleanup that includes all but most recent restore point removal. The only antivirus tool I will ever use is one provided by OS supplier. It is called Security Essentials.