I have instructions of how to change virtual memory, so system runs better, but I was afraid to make the change, due to not knowing what the change would affect.1 person needs an answerI do too

If you are getting Low Virtual Memory errors then set the pagefile to System Managed or to a suitable fixed size. The change will allow Windows to create and use a bigger pagefile and these virtual error messages will stop. The pagefile is used when the operating system needs to free RAM for applications demanding more memory than is available. How much RAM do you have in the computer?Look in the Performance Tab in the Task Manager and give us the "Physical Memory" and "Commit Charge" figures. If you find yourself running low on "Available Physical Memory" or high on the "Total Commit Charge" then take a look at the Processes and see what is hogging the memory. Ideally the Total and Peak Commit Charge should never exceed the Total Physical Memory, if they do you have too many processes running or you don't have enough RAM installed for the programs that you run or for the manner in which you run your computer. Also make sure that you have no viruses or other pests on your machine as these can ramp up memory demand and use all the available RAM. Over time when you install many programs you may find that many of these programs automatically start when the computer boots and they can eventually add up to consume a significant amount of memory, try to keep the startup list lean and free of unnecessary startup items.John

http://pcsmarties.wordpress.com/low-virtual-memory/ -- db`...><)))> ."Bobby Collas" wrote in message news:08637ab3-b611-42bb-8845-b465bc6635ab...I have instructions of how to change virtual memory, so system runs better, but I was afraid to make the change, due to not knowing what the change would affect.db`...>-)))> `...>-)))> share the nirvana mann

When I run msconfig.exe, and go to services, there are a lot of programs running. If I uncheck all of them, will my computer start up again ? When I start Task Manager, I push control, alt, delete, and 36 Windows Task Manager windows pop up. What's up with that ? In the performance Tab, Physical Memory is Total : 261488 Commit Charge is Total : 536544 Limit: 874048 Peak: 836052 In the Totals it says there are 42 processes, this is after I closed 35 Task Manager Windows. The Kernel Memory Total is 74432, Paged: 35248, Nonpaged: 39184. The CPU Usage changes from 94% to 100% at the bottom of the Processes tab window. During this message, I am running Microsoft Security Essentials full system scan. What is a suitable setting for pagefile? These are the Virtual Memory settings: Drive C: 368-768, Paging File for Drive C: space available 18941 MB, It's set on custom size: Initial Size (MB) 368, Maximum Size (MB) 768, Total Paging File Size for all drives: Minimum Allowed 2MB, Recommended 382 MB, Currently Allocated 621 MB, There's 2 other options that are not checked, system managed size and no paging file.

Hi Bobby.Firstly do not turn off all programs in msconfig. You couls inadvertently turn off essential windows programs. On the first page of msconfig is several options for starting windows with different settings. If you feel the need to use msconfig just use these.Secondly getting 36 task manager windows is not normal behaviour. Do system scans with something like 'Malwarebytes' and 'Spybot' to eliminate any infection which could be causing this. Do this then you can look at other possible causes.Thirdly you will get the low virtual memory warning with your pagefile set to this low limit, especially if running a processor intensive app as MS essentials. Try setting the pagefile to 'System Managed' as suggested previously. If this works and you want to set the pagefile manually then look at a minimum setting of about 1.5 times the total amount of memory installed. I would recommend the system managed option.If you think my answers are helpful please vote and mark as possible answer. Thank you.

It is recommended to use System Managed Size. (And you should do this.)But the problem is this won't help your performance. You have at least once memory/resource hog running. It might be malware. It might be a legit program. But you should still use the free version of MBAM to make sure.Bsaically, you have two problems. First, you probably don't have enough RAM for optimized performance. 256MB is too low for most users of XP. Bumping it up to 1GB will dramatically improve your performance (because you would no longer be overly relying on the pagefile) and virtually guarantee you would never get those pesky Virtual Memory messages.However, you still need to address the issue of which program or process is hogging your memory/resources. While in Task Manager, click the processes tab. You can sort by CPU and/or Mem Usage to see which process is the hog. Then you can address THAT issue. :-)

36 Task Manager windows pop up? 36 separate instances of task manager open in separate windows? That is certainly not normal! Are you sure that the machine is virus free?As mentioned by another poster your problem is that you have a marginal amount of RAM installed in the computer. You have 256MB of RAM installed and when taken the figures that you posted show that your system had a Commit Charge of about 525MB, the system was short about 270MB of RAM. To make up for the memory shortage the system has to use the disk as memory, it has to move memory "pages" from the RAM to the hard disk to free up RAM for active threads and then it has to page it back from the hard disk to the memory when it needs the information again, this is the worse possible performance bottleneck that any computer can have!If you look at the "Peak" commit charge you will see that at one time during the current Windows session the system had commit charge of about 816MB, your system was short about 560MB of RAM to supply the demand of the running processes, that makes for an awful lot of disk paging, your system must be running as fast as an emperor penguin in a huddle! You really need to add more RAM to the computer to improve things, making the pagefile larger may make Low Virtual Memory errors disappear but it will not do anything to improve performance.Until you add more RAM to the machine all that you can really do is try to conserve RAM by making sure that there are absolutely no unnecessary programs or processes running in the background. Run the commands below at a Command Prompt then post the results with your next post and we may be able to give you some advice as to what you could get rid of.Reboot the computer and let it settle down before you run the commands.XP Home doesn't come with the Tasklist utility (XP Pro does) if you have the Home version download the Tasklist.exe utility here: http://www.computerhope.com/download/winxp.htm and place it in the WINDOWS\system32 folder.Run these commands, pressing <Enter> after each and post the results:net start >C:\Startlist.txttasklist /svc >>C:\Startlist.txtc:\startlist.txtNote the single redirector ">" in the first command and the double one ">>" in the second command.John