Whats going on??

whats virtual memory on a computer?? i got a msg come up just before and it said your virtual memory is low, will now create a new disk or something. but yet my C drive isnt even a quater full! whats going on? and what do i need to do to fix it?

Whats going on??
This probably happened because one of your programs was requesting too much memory. The system will fix itself. Some programs might shut down automatically because Windows is denying some programs memory to run the memory-hogging one.





This has nothing to do with the amount of space on your Hard-Drive.





EDIT: Allow me to be more clear. Considering the fact that you are using only a 4th of your hard drive space, then you should not worry about trying to free up hard drive memory for virtual memory. That would be rather overkill in my opinion. Yes, if you wipe everything but system files, then you will have more virtual memory, but you should have more than enough virtual memory to run in normal circumstances. A better solution would be to track your program usage, and expand from there.
Reply:"virtual memory" means it's memory, but isn't. The physical memory is what's called RAM (Random Access Memory). Those are the long strips (commonly known as Memory Cards) that serve as part of the "brains" of your computer.





There's also something in Windows called a Paging File/Pagefile. THIS is part of the hard disk drive. When you install a hard drive, your motherboard already has preassigned a certain amount of hard disk space to act as "Virtual Memory". Virtual means ALMOST like the real thing..in this case it's ALMOST like the memory cards you have installed on your motherboard.





Like the previous person stated, if you have a memory-hogging program or "process" running, or if the RAM is full, the computer has to work harder to process what that memhog program is trying to do, so it seeks more memory, which, in turn will either cause you to want to kick your computer because it's going soooooo slllllllow, or it will give "The Blue Screen Of Death". One of the best things to do is to make sure you have a large amount of RAM installed, as well as a moderate pagefile/virtual memory setting. Also, regular defragmenting is known to speed access to your hard disk drive, as it "unclutters" the files present, and stacks them neatly side-by-side.





If you're not certain how to set the pagefile/virtual memory, ask someone you know who is good with technical aspects to help set it..Too little or too much may or may not cause problems. This may or may not solve your dilemma, but, I hope I've helped answer at least part of your question.
Reply:Virtual Memory Means capacity at your RAM drive.


Do Upgrade your RAM Drive with bigger capacity like if you are using 128MB of RAM Drive, upgrade it with 512MB and so on.





...stay happy


sIncerely;


[ r.Ahmad ]
Reply:virtual memory is hard disk space being used as memory. epending on what operating system you are using, and how its set up, you may have alot or not that much, but usually in Windows, the amount is set automatically, by windows. And most of the time, it is whatever is left free on the C drive.





If you are getting that message there are a couple possibilites, either somebody set up the virtual memory settings on your computer to use less space than all the free space on drive C, or you are trying to run too many things at once, or you may have spyware or a virus. My guess would be the spyware or virus.





If you are the only person using the computer, and you set it up the first time, then it should be set to normal windows default settings, which would mean the virtual memory would be all the free space on drive C and if C is less than half full, it should be way more than enough.





If you aren't running a ton of stuff at one time, then again, you should have way more virtual memory than you need, So I think its likely you have some spyware runnig in the background using up virtual memory, or a virus that is causing it to seem low.





Get a good anti-spyware program, and good anti-virus software, and make sure they are both up to date.
Reply:Don't panic!!!


You've got too many programs running at once, and Windows needs more VM to deal with it.


There is a way to increase the VM manually, but it's usually best just to leave it alone, try and open only one or a couple of different programs at any one time, and let Windows keep on deciding when it needs more VM (which is when it tells you it's temporarily increasing the VM size to cope with what you're doing).





It's perfectly OK and nothing to worry about.
Reply:This has EVERYTHING to do with space on your hard drive. When your system runs out of available physical memory (RAM) it uses part of the hard drive that's called "virtual memory" or a "paging file" or just a "pagefile." This is a section of the hard disk that the system treats as memory, writing data back and forth from it just like it would RAM. Since you don't have enough RAM in your system, it's going to this paging file and also running out of space there.





To check out what's up with your pagefile size:





Start %26gt; Settings %26gt; Control Panel %26gt; System %26gt; Advanced tab %26gt; Settings under Performance %26gt; Advanced tab %26gt; Change under Virtual Memory.





You can either set it to System Managed Size, or if you try that and it doesn't seem to resolve the problem, you can set Initial Size to a couple of GB and the Max size to a few more GB - there's a lot of info out there on what you should set these to, try searching around and reading up a bit.





For a "better" (read: more expensive) solution to the problem, you can invest in some more RAM, which will also dramatically increase the performance of your computer, since it won't need to use the hard disk so much, which is ridiculously slow compared to RAM access speeds.
Reply:It has nothing to do with your HD space. You have justs been using too many high powered programs at the same time or over a short period of time. Just try rebooting when that happens. Cause just turning off the programs does not get all your memory back.. but rebooting does.


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