Windows 7 forum: "Your computer is low on memory." But why?!

If I had the money for a new computer, I'd have opted for that route. On disability retirement, even flash drives are sometimes a luxury. The previous owner of this computer bought it because it had Vista and was supposed to be ready for 7 when it came out. For now I'll have to go with the advice and help I've been given, and make this laptop last a few more years.
PP

Right, so it's a 64 bit system. In theory that could support many terabytes of memory (RAM) but in reality there is likely to be a hardware limit coming from the way this specifc laptop model has been designed. You say your RAM is already maxed out, but you don't tell us how much RAM there is. It should be between 4GB and 16GB is my guess. It wouldn't make sense to run a system with less than 4GB in 64 bit mode (although you can ...) But this doesn't matter too much in any event - we are looking at a problem that will hit you sooner if you have a small amunt of memory and later if you have lots. But it will eventually hit you. Back in the days of "old" Windows it wasn't such a big problem, because your system would crash about two or three times a day anyway. After a reboot all programs would have to allocate memory all over again.

Okay, I am getting ahead of myself here - let me first explain what is happening: We are starting from the assumption (according to Murphy) that there is essentially no bug-free software. In particular, all software that can run for extended periods of time and can allocate memory for its own use, can and most likely will - over time - allocate memory and forget to release it again when it is no longer needed. After a while most memory on the system will thus be allocated, even if it is no longer needed.

In many cases it is sufficient to close such a program to release the memory it holds. Unfortunately, there is a chance that the memory was allocated in such a way that cannot be associated with this program; thus it is not released at program termination. Such memory can only be reclaimed via a reboot.

So much for the pure theory. In practical terms we find that by far the most memory related problems come from browsers and from the way certain websites are configured. If you want to learn more about your specific situation, remember that Task Manager is your friend. It may take a bit of studying or just plain observation On the performance tab you can see overall memory use, on the processes tabs you can see which programs use most of the memory - you can even sort the table by memory (or any other column) simply by clicking on the column header. This works in many places in Windows nowadays.

On my computers it is almost alway the browser that uses up most of the memory. With multiple browser windows and tabs this got worse over time. The good news is that you can shut down all the browser windows and restart the ones you still need, which usually frees up a lot of memory. So, a reboot isn't always needed (although it is not such a bad idea to reboot from time to time, even if Windows no longer forces your hand ...)

What I haven't discussed yet is the virtual memory mechanism, which allows Windows to free up some memory by copying its contents to disk until it is needed again. This can be really useful - until the "swap-out" to disk starts monopolizing the system resources and there is hardly any time left for the actual processing.

Windows has a number of strategies to deal with a memory-tight situation. One would be to increase the size of the disk-based virtual memory pool, so that more memory can be freed by swapping its content out to disk. As long as swapping doesn't get out of hand this can be quite helpful. But clearly there are limits.

The Windows versions of today try to avoid what seemed to be the strategy in the past - if in doubt, just crash ...

This is why Windows will eventually decide that - short of a reboot - only the termination of one or more programs will resolve the issue. Since Windows can't guess which programs you could do without or which programs don't need to save their files first before shutting down it comes forward with the message you saw.

In my experience, when it comes to that point it is best to quickly work towards an orderly shutdown and reboot, because it is quite possible that the next surprise will be a crash, especially if the cause of the memory crunch is still active and chewing away.

What can you do to avoid this situation? Well, once again: Task Manager is your friend. Run it in the performance view for a while and watch when the memory curve (the bottom one) goes up and when it goes down. Use this and the processes view to identify your greatest memory hog. If it is not your browser consider running this program by itself for a while to better study its memory use patterns. You may also contact the vendor about the memory use or upgrade to a newer version or a competing program.

But most likely it is your browser, and most likely it is one specific web site. And, strictly following Murphy's Law, it will be the single most important web site in your life. Well, even so, make it a point to shut down your browswer once or twice a day just to reset the memory use.

If this helps, good. Otherwise - come back here with your results and let's all see what we can make of them.

j_cat

No offense but the truth is that you need to look at the requirements for each operating system and it's version being it 32 or 64bit. With that being said there really isn't much difference in requirements if any between Vista, 7 and 8. While Vista made a big jump from XP as it pertains to system requirements there has not been a big leap since. I have upgraded literally hundreds of Vista PC's and Laptops to Windows 7 with the result being that 99.8% of the time that the computers run better on 7 than they did on Vista. With a few rare exceptions in the event I cannot find a driver that is 7 compatible for a given model from a manufacturer's web site or the working equivalent from the hardware vendor itself such as Nvidia or alike. I too have installed and used every OS since DOS 5 all the way to Windows 8. Now I am not sure what you do for a living or what your experience in this matter is exactly, But I can vouch for my own experience on this matter. I have worked as a Lead PC Tech for Best Buy, Circuit City a Level 3 Team Lead for a National Education Company as their Employee technical support. I currently run my own business which you can see at http://mypcservices.us along with all that I graduated Summa *** Laude from Kaplan University with an Associates of Science In Information Technology, I am MCP Certified and I am currently attending DeVry for my Bachelors of Science in the Cisco Networking Management Program. I have worked for ATT as a Network Tech, along with other ISP's. So over the past 27 years I have worked on more computers than anyone I have ever met and again I absolutely have to disagree with you. Yes technology improves to a certain degree but when it comes to the operating systems that run the computers they don't make that big of leaps from one to the next version. So that is my counter opinion and you can take it for what it's worth, but you can ask similar people anywhere that a Vista PC can easily handle both Windows 7 or 8 so this is absolutely not the issue here.

Paul R. Chapman

with your experience and education I respect your comments on installing windows 7 on a vista computer. I have the spec's of pastors vista computer and even with vista in it , with all the changes /updates microsoft had to do to keep it working just that alone makes his computer not very reliable.

we have little knowledge of how the operating system and the processors are created to work efficently along with the mother board circuitry. only the end result is what we must deal with .

with a hunderd fellow workers and the results of our tweeking of computers, to get the most life , it is not agreeing with your results.

vista is the worst microsoft operating system ever sold. windows 2000 was also very poor.

so installing windows 7 over vista may appear to mask the poor programing by microsofts vista.

since the pastor computer is low on abilities, the windows 7 was not a good choice in my opinion.

65 bit was to be 64 bit

My first computer (if you don't count the close-out Coleco Adam I picked up to get started) was a Mac Plus. I worked my way up to a Performa 570, but the church related software I needed was getting more and more scarce for Mac and I had to move to a Windows platform. Unfortunately, before I got the chance to figure out how to transfer my files from the Mac to the PC, I went on disability retirement, had to move, lost my wife after an 11 month battle with cancer, and had a few more setbacks myself. When I was finally able to get to the job, the Performa was fried.
I got a great deal on a used G3, just for the purpose of getting those files. Turns out that my old hard drives (internal and external) weren't compatible with the G3. I found a few Mac techs who could pull the files off and get them to me in a Windows format, but they either wanted to do just a handful of files, or they wanted prices that were almost as high as recovering a hard drive in a clean room. So in in the closet behind me are my old drives while I dream of someday getting those files. But Murphy's law will probably prevail. Either there will be many files that can't be converted to Windows and/or there will be many I don't need after all. :^)
Thanks for the reply!
PP

It said MEMORY. Memory = RAM + Paging file. If Paging file cannot expand when it is left to "system managed" and you need it, you get the same message.

RAM could be the issue but, more than likely, it will be something going on with the disk that affects RAM utilization. In Windows, regardless of version, memory is a combination of RAM and the paging file. You seem to be using "memory" and the term "ram" as though they are the same. They are not.

pastor bill save youself lots of time and troubles buy a new computer . you can get a fairly powerful windows machine for 600.oo . plently of drive space and ram. windows 8 is working perfectly so far for me. this maybe the best operating system produced by microsoft so far.

with all the other user internet products out there , a laptop/desktop computer is very well priced to get buyers at this time.

good luck !

It is possible the paster will be successful. I doubt it unless he gets some help from those that have done this type of experiment.

computer repair shops are still around to give hands on help.

Pastor Paul,

Hard disk space is definitely your issue. The computer uses hard disk space to swap between the active programs, using the hard disk as "virtual memory" (RAM). Fortunately for you, prices on SSD's have dropped dramatically, if you want to stick to an SSD ... you can get an SSD twice the size of your current one for well under $100 these days. Now, the advantage of an SSD is low power consumption and speed. If those are not factors for you (you don't run on battery a lot and aren't running high performance programs like serious games), then you could easily switch back to a normal hard disk and get a 500 gig drive for around $50-$60.

You will have to decide how important the "XP" legacy program is to you and whether there are viable alternatives which will run in a 64 bit environment. If there are no alternatives and you really need this program then you will need to reinstall Windows 7 with a 32 bit version. This will limit the computer to a bit over 3 gig of useable RAM but also allow you run your program. (Alternatively, you could run a virtual XP machine but I expect that is more than you want to go through.)

Either way, you will need to replace the SSD hard disk with either another SSD or a traditional hard drive. As soon as you have the new drive in place, set your swap file to a set size that doesn't change. This will prevent fragmentation of the swap file which has a negative impact on performance and prevent future "out of memory" messages (although you will get "disk full" messages if you fill your hard drive).

Click "Start" --> Right Click on "Computer" --> Left Click on "Properties" --> Left Click "Advanced System Settings" --> Click the "Advanced" tab --> Click "Settings" in the Performance section --> Click "Advanced" tab --> and then Click the "Change" button. Remove the check from "Automatically manage paging file ..." and then click "Custom Size". there is an item at the bottom which says "Recommended". Enter this value in both the Initial size and the Maximum size. Save all the settings and reboot.

A term Pastor Paul will probably recognize - parablepsis (I too have been to seminary and studied Greek) ... my eyes skipped a line or two when reading. That having been said, he still needs to replace the primary drive (or somehow clear enough space on it) as insufficient disk space is the source of the error he is encountering. Unfortunately, he is also likely in the position of needing to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional (Enterprise or Ultimate) in order to be able to run his XP based program. If he has a retail license of XP sitting around, or can come up with one, he could download Microsoft Virtual PC and run XP in that environment. (Download from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 ) He could also go through the PITA of a dual boot system. (From what I understand, you cannot use an OEM version of XP with MVPC.)

(I admit I missed that at first). If there are a lot of temp files and other stuff out there, the PAGEFIL.SYS (Sysyem Memory Paging File) can get bogged down. Also, I had to deal with a laptop that had an SSD and was extremely slow and was giving error codes on Windows Update that indicated a disk error. A firmware refresh for the SSD fixed all that. Since the Paging File is on disk, that can affect performance including out of memory errors because it is considered part of memory.

I agree on external HDD's on anything. It is just extra bulk to look at, and they usually have fans making them noisier, plus draw more power.

The only problem with a retail XP, is that if he opts for that, has can't use the SSD, hence more expense.

Bottom line, if all the conversations were in real time, the problem would have been solved in the first session, and probably be very affordable for the Pastor. He will just have to pick and choose which is the most practical for himself that gets the job done.

Unfortunately, between struggling with Greek at the sem, not keeping up with it like I should have, and the brain atrophy, I'm lucky to recognize a few of the simple words. Maybe I'll have to settle for getting out my old text book and flashcards and relearn the old-fashioned way.

PP

In order to run all of your programs, memory has to move around and it is done by breaking the memory into "pages" that are loaded into the RAM from the page file. That is, if you are loading your web browser and you have your email program still open, you can still do this even though the amount of RAM to hold both your email program AND open the browser may exceed the capacity of the computer. It's kind of a shell game. Those of you who want to see this in action can set the size of their pagefile to "zero" (tell Windows not to use a page file). Then watch how your computer works after the reboot (if it works). To set it back, you have to boot into SAFE MODE and reset the size of the paging file but, even so, it may take awhile to get to the point you can fix it. The pagefil.sys is actually considered part of your memory because RAM usually doesn't cut it.