"Windows is increasing the size of Virtual Memory" - Why???

I'm occasionally getting messages in WinXP Pro that Windows is increasing the size of
virtual memory... but my system has 2Gig of RAM, and every time I get this message I see
that I have about 1.3Gig of RAM available (according to Sysinternals Process Explorer).

Isn't WinXP supposed to use up my RAM before going to the swap file? Why get this
message when so much RAM is available?

Tony

Robert
Mon May 05 08:07:51 PDT 2008

Tony wrote:
> I'm occasionally getting messages in WinXP Pro that Windows is
> increasing the size of virtual memory... but my system has 2Gig of
> RAM, and every time I get this message I see that I have about 1.3Gig
> of RAM available (according to Sysinternals Process Explorer).
>
> Isn't WinXP supposed to use up my RAM before going to the swap file?

No.

> Why get this message when so much RAM is available?

Because a program running on your system has asked for a lot of space to be
reserved.

Victor
Wed May 07 10:17:43 PDT 2008

"Robert Moir" wrote...
> Tony wrote:
>> I'm occasionally getting messages in WinXP Pro that Windows is
>> increasing the size of virtual memory... but my system has 2Gig of
>> RAM, and every time I get this message I see that I have about 1.3Gig
>> of RAM available (according to Sysinternals Process Explorer).
>>
>> Isn't WinXP supposed to use up my RAM before going to the swap file?
>
> No.

It's my understanding that if WinXP has 2G or more RAM, then RAM is used as
part of the swap file to to make Windows run much more efficiently.

There's also a registry tweak somewhere that allows more RAM to be used as
swap file if you have less than 2G.

RAM can be used as the entire swap file if you disable Virtual memory, but
it's not recommended unless you know what you are doing. You need to track
your RAM and swap file usage with a monitor program. If peak RAM used plus
peak swap file usage never goes above 80% of your total RAM, you can then
disable virtual memory.

Also, a program like CacheMan can be used to tweak your RAM vs. sawp file
usage:

http://www.outertech.com/


>> Why get this message when so much RAM is available?
>
> Because a program running on your system has asked for a lot of space to
> be reserved.

Not necessarily.

Robert
Thu May 08 12:27:14 PDT 2008

Victor wrote:
> "Robert Moir" wrote...
>> Tony wrote:
>>> I'm occasionally getting messages in WinXP Pro that Windows is
>>> increasing the size of virtual memory... but my system has 2Gig of
>>> RAM, and every time I get this message I see that I have about
>>> 1.3Gig of RAM available (according to Sysinternals Process
>>> Explorer). Isn't WinXP supposed to use up my RAM before going to the
>>> swap file?
>>
>> No.
>
> It's my understanding that if WinXP has 2G or more RAM, then RAM is
> used as part of the swap file to to make Windows run much more
> efficiently.

That makes no sense. Unless you mean creating a ramdisk, which makes no
sense for the swapfile for very different reasons.

> There's also a registry tweak somewhere that allows more RAM to be
> used as swap file if you have less than 2G.

I doubt it.

> RAM can be used as the entire swap file if you disable Virtual
> memory, but it's not recommended unless you know what you are doing.

I don't know who told you this but they have a very fundemental
misunderstanding of how virtual memory and swap files work.

Victor
Sat May 10 20:26:58 PDT 2008

"Robert Moir" wrote...
> Victor wrote:
>> "Robert Moir" wrote...
>>> Tony wrote:
>>>> I'm occasionally getting messages in WinXP Pro that Windows is
>>>> increasing the size of virtual memory... but my system has 2Gig of
>>>> RAM, and every time I get this message I see that I have about
>>>> 1.3Gig of RAM available (according to Sysinternals Process
>>>> Explorer). Isn't WinXP supposed to use up my RAM before going to the
>>>> swap file?
>>>
>>> No.
>>
>> It's my understanding that if WinXP has 2G or more RAM, then RAM is
>> used as part of the swap file to to make Windows run much more
>> efficiently.
>
> That makes no sense.

No, it makes perfect sense.

If you are not swapping out RAM to disk as often, it speeds up Windows. It
makes perfect sense because RAM is faster than disk.

> Unless you mean creating a ramdisk, which makes no sense for the swapfile
> for very different reasons.

No, you have a a fundamental misunderstanding of how virtual memory works.

Here is a direct quote from kb308417:
"When your computer is running low on RAM, and you must have more RAM
immediately, Windows uses hard disk space to simulate RAM. This is known as
virtual memory."


>> There's also a registry tweak somewhere that allows more RAM to be
>> used as swap file if you have less than 2G.
>
> I doubt it.
>
>> RAM can be used as the entire swap file if you disable Virtual
>> memory, but it's not recommended unless you know what you are doing.
>
> I don't know who told you this but they have a very fundemental
> misunderstanding of how virtual memory and swap files work.

O.K., so if you have 2G of RAM and you disable virtual memory, how does
Windows XP operate with lots of RAM and no swap file?

James
Sun May 11 07:13:06 PDT 2008


On Sat, 10 May 2008 23:26:58 -0400, "Victor" <vic222@yahoo.com> wrote:

>No, it makes perfect sense.
>
>If you are not swapping out RAM to disk as often, it speeds up Windows. It
>makes perfect sense because RAM is faster than disk.


It doesn't make sense to swap ram out to ram. What is the purpose of
such a swap?


Jim.