Windows experts....my mom is having virtual memory problems

[ikojo]

on her Windows computer. She uses Windows XP (I think she may use XP professional but I am not sure).

I advised her to delete all temporary Internet files in Internet Explorer and then to defrag her hard drive.

Is there somewhere she can increase the amount of space allocated to virtual memory?

Thank you as you help my mom!

[welshTerrier2]

1. Is she running an anti-spyware program?

spyware can do some nasty things ... here's a link to a great (and free) anti-spyware program:

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

download it, install it, and then make sure you activate all possible protections by going through all the menu options ...

i would try to figure out what's causing the problem before i added additional memory ... you could be dealing with a problem that will grab all the memory you feed it ...

[ikojo]

2. I think her antivirus software is Norton

I am not sure whether she is running any spyware but she has downloaded incredimail so she may have some spyware. I am going to be visiting her over the weekend of Feb 19 and will be unable to check until then.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Virtual Memory

Virtual memory is the Windoze paging (swap) file, meaning space allocated on the hard disk to use if actual memory, RAM, is used up. If Windoze is giving her the message something like, "Windows is low on virtual memory ... increasing ..." it means the amount of space allocated to this is too low for the amount of memory she has combined with the amount of memory the programs she is running are using up.

The basic problem here is that she needs more RAM. If she's running XP on a system with 128MB, she'll use a lot of virtual memory because Windoze itself takes up most of that. Any additional programs will take more. If she's running a lot at the same time or one that uses a lot of memory, even the default page file size will be a problem. System performance is severely affected by this, especially if the hard drive is not super fast or is fragmented or some such thing.

To increase its size, go to Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > and click on the Performance "Settings" button. Then click the Advanced tab when that window pops up. At the bottom should be a section called "Virtual Memory." Click the "Change" button. In this window are several options for each drive on the system.

For most users with not enough RAM, the best setting is "System Managed," which will result in the "Windows low on virtual memory" message from time to time. Make sure the "no paging file" setting is NOT checked. That will result in her running out of memory entirely and being unable to open new programs and use some she's running. The other settings allow for a user defined page file size. I wouldn't recommend this unless she knows what's she's doing here and has a very large hard drive. If "system managed" is checked, she's fine, but the message indicates she's running out of real memory a lot.

To solve the problem more permanently, she'll need more RAM.

All that said, Spyware and other programs running in the background she doesn't need or really want can be an issue with this. If she has a lot of them, actual RAM usage can be enormous, forcing the increase in page file size. So, check for spyware and make sure she doesn't have a lot of useless applications running she doesn't need.

Hope that helps.

[CBGLuthier]

4. most likely it's spyware.

Most of the virtual memory running low warnings I see nowadays (I repair for a living) have to do with spyware.

Get Adaware and Spybot and start reading about cleaning up spyware.

Take a lok at the running process list and google the process names.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. I don't send an XP system out the door...

Without at least 512 Megs of RAM. If she does not have at least that, there is a source of the problems.

The way that both Windows and Linux use the RAM is not how you might think. The more, the better it runs.

[Berserker]

6. There are some

very good free programs that will help here.
Security Tools