Windows virtual memory ?

[macmac]

 Does anyone know what Windows virtual memoryis ?
I keep getting a message box that pops up saying "your Windows virtual memory is too low the size of your virtual paging file,Windows will do this but some things may be affected while they do " ??? ??? ???
Anybody know ?

[macmac]

[BarriedaleNick]

Windows Virtual memory (aka swap or page file) is a file on your hard drive that windows uses when it runs out of RAM (physical memory).

If you have say 256mb in your box then that is not enough so windows swaps data in and out of physical memory to the hard drive and back.  This causes a lot of hard drive activity and slows your PC down.
A badly written or hung application can also take up memory space so sometimes you will see the message even though you have a decent amount of ram

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_can_i_fix_too_little_virtual_memory_in_windows.html shows how to see what is using virtual memory.

To fix you can increase your page file size

Right click on My Computer
Advanced Tab
under performance - click settings.
Select the advanced tab
Click on Change under the Virtual Memory section.
Do not move it but you can change the max size to something larger..

[emmy1978]

I LOVE A4A!

This has been happening to me too and Google didn't bring this up. Thanks BN.  ;D

[macmac]

THANKS B.N. I think I've done it :-\

[Pesky Wabbit]

BarriedaleNick is that for XP ?

Also, is it not just the size of data paged out but also the rate (reads/writes per second). Even well written application may just actually require a large amount of space quite legitimately?

I don't 'do' PCs but come from the world of Digital VMS (Virtual Memory System) from the 1970s until late 90s.
On VMS there was a parameter called Page Fault Rate which could be monitored generally or, for a particular process. If a process was constantly racking up high PFRs (reads or writes) there was generally something wrong.

Is there any such thing in PC land ?

[BarriedaleNick]

Yep its for XP but applies to a large extent to other windows systems. Win 7 seems better at managing it though.
This particular message is just a warning that Windows is going to increase the file size for you.  A high rate of read\writes will certainly impact performance though..

There is a performance monitoring tool in Windows but it's fiddly and not very granular and I haven't played with it much to be honest - perhaps I should have a closer look!

[shirlton]

Strangely enough that happened to me this afternoon but I had awindow come up telling me that windows was doing this itself so I left well alone