Windows XP forum: WINDOWS XP - VIRTUAL MEMORY MINIMUM TOO LOW

Thanks for the info.

You can increase the size of your page file if there is space available on the hard disk. Logon as an Admin, hold down the Windows logo key and press Pause/Break to open System Properties. Click the Advanced Tab. In the Performance section click Settings. Click Advanced Tab again. In Virtual Memory section click Change. Choose the appropriate drive in the first window. Below that choose Custom Size and increase the value in the Maximum Size(MB) box. Click set, ok, and then restart your computer.

We recently encountered this same message & lock up on my son's laptop and the whole browser was hijacked. A complete re-install of XP was required.

Should have only cleard the pagefile unless the Initial pagefile size was set to zero or there abouts. Unless something else was amiss.

"dont try to touch virtual memory"

"touch"[ed] properly, it is not a problem.

FreeRam utlilities themselves can often be a problem as they are capable of freeing RAM that one does not want freed.

Free RAM is only wasted RAM.

I too would first of all check how much space is available on your HDD. Empty the Windows temp folder of all files (use Windows explorer) - empty the recycle bin (how many people never do this) - In IE go to Tools - Internet Options and Clear History - Delete Cookies - Delete Files (also check box for Delete all offline content) and, while you are there, click on Settings and re-set the 'Amount of disk space to use' to about 20 (yes- twenty - if the IE cache is too big it actually slows down browsing speed as IE checks a gigantic cache to see if you've 'been there before').

By far the best way is to add a second drive (Slave HDD) - an old small one is fine, about 8 or 10 Gigs - and put the Swap file AND IE cache on there. In IE, tools, Internet Options, Move Folder, click on the slave HDD. For the Windows cache I can only tell you for 98se - Windows/Pause Break key, Performance, Virtual Memory, click the 'Let me specify my own virtual memory settings', change the drive letter to the slave HDD, the minimum size is usually 2 to 2.5 times the size of your real RAM. There is no speed gain using a partition on the same HDD but a separate HDD with work at the same time as your main HDD.

THREE separate HDDs are even better - one for Programs, one for Data and one for the Caches. Perhaps our Moderators would like to comment on this.

Virtual memory a.k.a. "swap file" "page(ing) file" is:
1- A file on your hard disk,
2- Used by the system (Windows) to store Physical memory (RAM) content when it (Windows) needs to make room for more content.
Therefore, it is:
3- Sensitive to available space on your disk (If your HD is almost full, Windows won't be able to expand that file to the size it needs).
4- Very sensitive to disk fragmentation,(more so if you use the FAT32 format).

So, if you have at least the minimum recommended RAM size for your Windows version, please DO increase the size of your Virtual memory to at least 2.5 times the size of your real RAM (256MB RAM = 640MB or more for virtual memory).

IMPORTANT: Setting the SAME Max. and Min. values to the virtual memory (and doing so after a disk defrag) (Min. size = 640MB AND Max. size = 640MB), will reserve that space for the file (even if your drive fills up, windows will have enough space for it) and, minimise fragmentation of the file, plus a noticeable speedup of startup and shutdown times.

If moving the pagefile to a different volume, better to move it to a different , and dedicated hard drive. Because the benefit is that the hard drives optical reader will not have to search through alot of system, program, and other data files before it can find and search the pagefile. May as well just leave the pagefile on the system volume (C volume/drive).

In either case it can be beneficial to still maintain a pagefile of RAM+1MB to maintain a crashdump. Crashdump is a helper tool used by the crashreporter daemon to create crash reports and notify the user of application crashes and sometimes possible solutions.

Even having pagefile split between hard drives, when the computer has to search/add to pagefile it will go to the least active volume wich would be a hard drive solely dedicated to pagefile.

Don't recall. Was a Windows dev forum a few years ago. Actually I think it was a 200, 2003 Svr forum. Couldn't find it (if it's still out there). But did find quite an array of verying opinions.

Closest I come was TWEAK GUIDES TWEAKING COMPANION's ''should put the main pagefile on the drive that doesn't contain your Windows installation and applications/games. This will reduce hard drive head movement on the main disk and speed up access to the pagefile on the other disk''. If this is like what I read, then I got it twisted and stand corrected.

BTW, what are you referring to regarding ''open for the session''?

Hello there,

I too, encountered your same problem. I followed the advice I received which was quite similar to what other posters here have suggested. At the end of the day, the best solution for me was to add more RAM. You don't mention how much memory you currently have. I only had the 256k that came with my computer. I learned that when running XP, photo programs, and other memory intensive apps, that it's just best to have adequate memory. I ordered another 256k, installed it, and all is better now. I hadn't realized how slow things had gotten until I added RAM. Might work for you, too. Good luck.

What is the procedure?
Thanks.

over two years ago, and the last post was a year ago.

I am not sure you will get much help as the posters have probably moved on.

Best if you create your own thread/discussion and start afresh. Be sure to give more details, eg when does this message pop up?

Mark

the virtual memory minimum message keeps coming up and my computer is running very slow. Can you give me any advise? I have windows xp dell 3000

I often get the message "done but with error on page" on task bar at bottom left. How do I fix that? Thank you. E a9/4/10