Virtual Memory: How do I adjust Virtual Memory settings?

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The best course of action here is to open your Task Manager and locate the processes which consume a big amount of system resources. In some cases, these are some buggy programs (programmers often forget to free the objects:)) or just a hanging game (Counter Strike for exapmle). The easyest way is to kill all the related processes and threads. Righ-click the selected process and then click "End process tree". This will kill all the related threads and will free the virtual memory.

how can i adjust virtual memory setting for better performance of faster browsing and fast pc speed?

The rule of thumb I use for a low end machine (say less than 1 gig of RAM) is to have twice as much virtual memory as you have RAM. For a high end machine (1gig or more), I set VM size to the size of RAM.

Regardless VM is always slower than RAM. If you really need speed, the best thing you can do is add more RAM.

I have heard that Microsoft's Security patches require that the virtual memory should be in a "systems managed" state or you create a risk of killing the application that is using most of the systems resources. Have you experienced or heard anything concerning this? Thanks, ~Rob

Never heard of such a thing. If you find more information on it, I'd love to hear.

your articles are very informative. I've been trying to find out what "low on virtual memory" means, this only pops up when I run my virus scan, I now have a better understanding of what this is thanks denise

My inlaws computer crashed and required windows xp to be reinstalled. Upon completion of the installation the computer is not caught in a rebooting loop and only shows the black screen with the running bar for windowes xp, but does not enter into the program before rebooting. the error message that pops up, as best i can read in its breifness, is about there not being enough virutal memory or paging file.... Will buying more memory fix this or what do i need to do. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

It's unlikely that more RAM will help.

I read a great technique on the Langa List for those messages that flash by too quickly ... use a digital camera that can take short videos, or a digital camcorder, and record the screen as the problem happens. Then, step through the video a frame at a time around when it happens, and you can often get a good picture of the message.

In the mean time, if it is virtual memory related, I'd try booting in safe mode, or the recovery console, and making sure that there's enough disk space.

your article has been very informative. thank you. Where axactly can I locate my settings to change them?and what do you suggest to set?
I went to control panel, but where axactly?

Well, as the article indicated, the "System" item in Control Panel, to start. The rest is in the article.

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