How can I fix "too little virtual memory" in Windows?

Dave, help! My PC keeps on hanging in every interval. It shows an error that "your system is running with too little virtual memory". What troubleshooting can I do and what fix can I apply to make my PC run without any obstacles?

Dave's Answer:

I'm going to assume you're running Windows XP, and seeing a message stating "Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file." Unless you have very little physical memory (RAM) in your system, this message is indicative of a buggy application with a memory leak.

A memory leak is a common problem caused by poorly written or poorly debugged applications where they continually use more and more memory until you shut down the program, end the process manually or restart Microsoft Windows.

Virtual memory, also known as a page file or swap file, is a file on your hard drive (C:\pagefile.sys by default) that Windows and applications use in addition to physical memory (RAM) as needed. The default and recommended size of this file is 1.5 times the amount of physical memory. Virtual memory is the sum of physical memory and the page file. So if your computer has 512 MB RAM, it will have a 768 MB page file by default, for a total of 1.25 GB of physical + virtual memory.

Finding the source of the problem

First you need to determine which application is causing the problem.

Hit Control-Alt-Delete to bring up Task Manager (on certain XP Professional configurations you'll need to click the Task Manager button after hitting Control-Alt-Delete). You can also access Task Manager by holding down Control and Shift and pressing Escape.

Go to the Processes tab in Task Manager. Here you will see a list of all the processes (applications or parts thereof) that are running on your system. You will see the memory usage here, but in my experience this very rarely has anything to do with problems running low on virtual memory.

Click View, Select Columns.

Check the Virtual Memory Size box, as circled in the screen shot below and click OK.

Windows Task Manager Virtual Memory Size

Now you have a VM Size column in your Processes tab. Click the top of the VM Size column (as circled below) twice to arrange the processes by their VM Size from largest to smallest.

You'll see in this Task Manager shot that Mozilla Firefox is taking up the most virtual memory at about 237 MB, with Internet Explorer the next biggest at about 81 MB. (the number of KB divided by 1024 equals MB) For both, this is the consequence of leaving them open for more than a week straight. Almost every application will use more memory the longer you keep it open, though some are worse than others. This is one reason that Windows becomes more and more unresponsive the longer you keep it running, and why you end up eeding to restart your computer periodically.

Once you determine which process is using more virtual memory than it should, you need to determine what the process is. Some are pretty obvious, like winword.exe is Microsoft Word, iexplore.exe is Internet Explorer, and so on. Others aren't so obvious. The best way to determine the source of a specific process is to use a search engine to search for the Image Name as shown in Task Manager.

Resolution

Now that you know which application is causing the problem, let's resolve it.

One common thing to try is to uninstall and reinstall the offending application if possible. Searching the Internet, and checking the support site of the software vendor would be the next two steps I would try. Without knowing which application is at fault, it's difficult to recommend a specific solution.

Thanks to Chris Buechler for his extraordinary assistance with this thorny puzzle

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Reader Comments To Date: 354

SHEILA said, on June 9, 2005 8:34 AM:

DAVE, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE VISITED YOUR WEBSITE BUT I AM SO GLAD I DID I HAVE BEEN HAVING A LOT OF PROBLEMS ON MY COMPUTER WITH VIRTUAL MEMORY BUT I READ WHAT YOU TOLD SOMEONE ELSE TO DO AND I AM GOING TO TRY THAT SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH SHEILA

Dave said, on July 4, 2005 10:07 PM:

Great Information,

Thanks for providing it !

Jonathan Mbewe said, on July 13, 2005 6:51 PM:

1. I'm running Windows 2000 on a 300 MHz PII with 96 MB SDRAM. It used to run smoothely initially. Recently it has been painfully slow. I tried opening Task Manager and realised there is a small program called SVCHOST.EXE that now takes up to 98% of my processor time. Where did it coming from? How I deal with it?

2. Since my first Defragmentation, the system has been giving an error message on booting; something like "Paging file does not exist, or is too small". I followed the instructions on rectifying it. However this problem reappears each time I boot. Please help.

Sarteck said, on August 15, 2005 6:01 AM:

Dave,

Thanks for this (found it through Google, just because I was curious about the Virtual Memory error, heh).

As in your example, FireFox is usually the offending application when it comes to my Virtual Memory running too low. The problem is, I am otherwise a hardcore FireFox fan, so I'll now be researching how I can patch up the memory leaks (I often leave my FireFox open overnight or even days at a time).

Thanks again,

Sarteck

paul said, on October 7, 2005 8:17 PM:

Im running windows xp, when i turned on my computer it told me i'm running out of virtual memory. My problem is that it wont let me do anything...if i can even get the computer to boot up, it wont let me open any programs including task manager...
any ideas??

Christine said, on January 17, 2006 12:22 PM:

Dave - Ok I'm working with MS Publisher 2003. I have artwork saved on 8.5X11 sheets that I want to save on 20 X 20 sheets and as JPEG's or BMP's but when I try to save the files in the larger formats, I receive and error telling me that I can't save. I'm lost. I have increased the virtual memory and I have the space on the harddrive so I don't know what to do. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Oh and I'm working with XP if it matters.
Thanks Christine

Paul said, on May 27, 2006 2:35 PM:

I have a windows 2000 system, and I upgraded from 10gig to 32gig via ghost2003. The system gets up to log in and then goes to a grey screen with a big box that says "Paging file does not exist, or is too small" and a bunch of other related things. I cannot get past this, I tried safe mode and it stops at the same place.

carrie ross said, on July 27, 2006 11:51 PM:

can u please explain an easier way of fixing my computer? i have windows 2000 professional and when im on aol it tells me that my " virtual memory is too low". thank you very much!

Melinda said, on August 29, 2006 7:46 PM:

After going through your process to help me restore more efficiency with my computer, and to check the Virtual Memory, I discovered that aolsoftware.exe had 453,472K. I know I need aol, but is there a way to reduce that?

Mike said, on August 30, 2006 10:35 AM:

I recently installed a new 80gig internial hard drive and loaded xp on it, after I set it up a blue screen appeared and said something to the effect, fatial error has occured try rebooting and it also said something about virtual memory. now I can't get the thing to boot up at all. even tried putting the old hard drive back in with no luck. please help.....

Sue said, on September 20, 2006 2:03 PM:

I bought a Seagate 160 GB external hard drive and it only shows 148 gb how can i recover the lost gb? Running windows xp pro

Michael Daley said, on September 25, 2006 4:03 PM:

Dave,
my problem is exactly what the aboe windows 2000 user describes, however I have an athalon processor, only using approx. 15 % of an 80 gig H.D. even if I go in and change the size of the file, it does not hold, when I reboot it is the same issue over and over again.

Help!!!

tom n said, on October 4, 2006 3:08 PM:

hey im low virtual memory and my max program is systray.exe which turns out to be system tray and is needed. it also takes up only 48,540k.
what do i do???

Don Fassler said, on October 14, 2006 3:44 PM:

thanks I needed that.

Matt W said, on October 23, 2006 9:41 AM:

I have a similar problem. Several programs, including explorer.exe, my internet browser, and most other programs I open myself end up using too much virtual memory. They start at a normal amount (about 50000kB) and increase to a huge amount (200000kB or more.

carolyn said, on November 25, 2006 4:38 PM:

I have a compaq presario 7500. 128/512gb/56 and my hard drive is ultra dma 40 gb,my cdrw drive is48x12x48 max speed.yet it says low on vertual memory.I have dial up.How do I fix this problem?How can I fix,I have the pc tool,to fix registry called registry mechanic.Still shows a window saying low on memory.Thank you,skyhawlk7@bellsouth.net

Technomage said, on December 1, 2006 9:17 PM:

Dave, thank you for this info! The only article that actually tells the truth about what happens under the hood. I have this behavior on a laptop occasionally when Windows is suspend/resumed with a few IE windows open. Seriously "a few" - is 5 many!? Now, true, my pagefile is set to 96 MB fixed size [because a) fluid size slightly decreases performance, and b) with 512 MB RAM and applications I'm running that sould be more that enough]. When this message pops up and I look into TaskMgr (or lately ProcessExplorer of Sysinternals - one of "Pricelessware" utilities) it shows over 300 MB free and available! What drives me nuts is: Microsoft and anybody else just says in response to this message - you need to increase pagefile size; my take on it - why!? If there's more than half my RAM available, why does a stupid application need "virtual memory"!? Since most services are stopped [performance reasons, I'm not lazy to start 'em when I actually need 'em], list of tasks is usually pretty small: 12-17, and when this message pops up I seem to always have IE open. So my hunch is that it is the offending app, since others play nicely. IE version is 6.0 sp1, Win - 2000 sp4 with all latest updates, same occasionally happens under Win XP too [with pagefile also fixed]. Of course, increase the pagefile size and most of us won't even see the message. Doesn't mean the problem actually has been solved! Thank you for fighting for better quality software!!

Vinay said, on December 4, 2006 8:27 AM:

while installing ms office 2003 on winXP+SP2 platform in betwwen my cd drive get discounected in system, after few days i also notice that sometimes scanner n printer also giving problem. every time ui have to reboot machine.
when i go to hardware device manager n refresh hardware disconncted hardware connects but again time of installing software its d/c.
i m using win xp system on 256mb memory.

Richard said, on December 13, 2006 9:15 PM:

Thanks for the help...needed it.

Joe said, on January 3, 2007 4:20 PM:

Dave the way that you explain things seem so down to earth, that even I can grasp all that you say.
This is the first time I found you, and I am glad guys like yourself are here to assist. Keep up all that you do, and thank you for your help.

kathy said, on January 14, 2007 2:59 PM:

I'm a dummy, but was able to understand your amazing explantion! Thanks ever so much

Bart said, on January 16, 2007 5:16 AM:

Dave, the info you gave on the Virtual Memory problem was very easy to find, thanks for your help on these issues. My problem I believe is along the same line as the firefox, I have Spyware Doctor, that's using 109,204K and when I have the Active Guard on, the memory column uses anywhere from 40,000K to 60,000K. I turned the active guard off which lowered the memory usage to 3,604K but the VM is still 109,204K. My question is, will turning the Active guard off on the Spyware Doctor help with the Virtual Memory pop up problem? Thanks again Dave.
Bart

jayant said, on February 4, 2007 12:37 PM:

i ve the same prob with VM..and the error process seems to be svchost.exe..
automatic updates ahs been deactivated but the prob persists..
any alternatives ??

Crys Stephens said, on February 11, 2007 5:57 AM:

I love this site! Thank you so much for making all of this available to me. I was so tired of trial and error.

mark said, on February 24, 2007 9:31 PM:

Thanks Dave, when I looked at my Virtual memory I immediately found the offending problem and cured me. I have looked on many sites for this answer and you were the first to have this easy solution!!

Rob T said, on February 27, 2007 8:05 AM:

Dear Dave,
I have been having a lot of problems recently with excessive CPU usage. Problem started when PC slowed down to a crawl. PC technician diagnosed a faulty reader on hard drive (replaced unit with a 40GB and reloaded windows xp). I was running low on memory so I added a new 512MB unit to the pre-existing 256MB.
Then I did a virus scan and found a Vundo virus which I removed.
The PC is a Dell Inspiron 8200, with a 1.7 GHz processor running XP SP2.
Whenever I go to AOL home page to pick up emails, the unit stops to a crawl, with CPU usage at 100%. Have tried reducing memory consumption by changing browser from Firefox back to IE, which help a bit.
Also having problems using Skype with calls dropping out after about 30 secs (tried about 3 versions). There was no problems prior to the start of this problem.

Have run out of ideas. Any suggestions ?

Thanks,

Rob T

rohan said, on February 28, 2007 5:27 PM:

Dave,

I am using Windows XP and a 512 RAM. please advise, how do i fix this error i get each time i try logging onto windows which says 'scv host not found please search again using search from start menu' and then a the windows32 folder opens by itself with DRVSTORE file highlighted. what do i do to fix this up? And im also having problems with low virtual memory, i cannot even figure out which is the program causing it. All of this has resulted to the machine being awefully slow.

please advise.

LuLu said, on March 22, 2007 11:33 PM:

...Well I am feeling like a dummy cuz everyone else seems to say they got it! I did all the steps, and the thing that runs the most is the Iexplore, but when you say...Once you determine which process is using more virtual memory than it should...I am trying to understand HOW do I know when it is using more virtual memory that it should??? I continued to research on how to fix it and found very few people talk about the leaks(and that's all they did...not even how to fix), and most sites just told you to increase the pagefile size (or something like that)...My computer just recently started doing this, so to me it sounds like something needs to be fixed. The only thing new on my computer is a new CD/DVD combo, and we haven't really used it yet. Can you help me out a little more??? Thanks.

XplicitMan said, on March 29, 2007 7:40 AM:

Thanks Man I think it was real player on my system

Tom said, on April 6, 2007 7:42 AM:

good job - thank you

Amanda Thompson said, on April 9, 2007 7:37 AM:

Hi Dave

I hope this site is still running, I just came across it today and it looked the best one to help me. I have followed your instructions so far to locate my problem. My problem is exactly what you say in your first paragraph up the top. When I searched on my computer for the file that is taking up so much virtual memory (ccSvcHst.exe is 75, 392K VM size with a username of SYSTEM and iexplore.exe is 44, 476k VM size with username as owner). I think my problem is the ccSvcHst.exe and when I did a search it says it is in a file I think called C:\ProgramFiles\CommonFiles\SymantecShared. Do you know how I can determine if this is a safe file and if not how I can safely get rid of it?

Please can someone help me?

Thank you.
Amanda

donnie said, on April 12, 2007 2:27 AM:

Hi dave
Im having pc problems im running windows xp home edition 800 mhz 256 meg's ram 40 gigs.But the problem im having i think it's a memory problems but what happens is.If im running an app or just browsing the net.My pc will freak out the mouse goe's crazy on it's own then window's start popping up everywhere really fast as if i clicked on some icon or tab's myself.But i wonder if it's the memory causeing that.Because somthing eating my memory and i cant find what it is.Its just so annoying i did virus scan's trojan checks and they found nothing.Somthing i just noticed as i type this. Is this normal for your task manger meter go up just from moving your mouse across the screen.But just wanted to know if you had a clue of what it could be

cessie said, on April 14, 2007 10:44 PM:

i understand a lil bit but half of it is i'm getting confious... the problem is correct exactly but the resolution is not clear yet for me... could u pls add more details?? plsss....

kenny said, on April 15, 2007 6:08 AM:

this site has helped me alot and i have reolved my problem thnaks a lot.

gokulnath said, on April 16, 2007 1:56 AM:

Thanx for solving my virtual memory problem. I came to know about virtual memory & its impacts through this article...

BoeDdha said, on April 22, 2007 3:34 AM:

Great! thx for solving the problem

Ann said, on May 1, 2007 1:40 AM:

My computer only has 512 RAM but has another slot for another 512K of RAM? Would buying this and installing it help my "virtual memory" problem?

Ann

Ray said, on May 4, 2007 7:52 AM:

Dave,

I seem to have the same situation as Amanda. ccsvchst.exe is continuing to pump up the page file memory. When I try to terminate the program accessi s denied since it is a process in the NAV or NIS system. Any clues?

Thanks.
Ray

Scott said, on May 4, 2007 11:08 PM:

Dave,
I have a good one for you that has been bugging me a few weeks now. Hopefully you have some suggestions for me. As I just found your site, I have not tried the steps you mentioned already on this page. I will do that next week.

I work for a company that has process control systems running OS/2 Warp 3. (Floppy Version) Currently, the hardware for these systems is starting to fail. As a work around until we can get a new PLC system, I have been successful getting the PLC software to run on OS/2 Warp 4 within a MS Virtual PC environment.

I seem to be having memory/page file issues with the host OS which is WinXP Pro.

I have alotted 64MB RAM (even tried 128MB of 1GB physical) to the OS/2 VPC environment, and it works nearly flawlessly for roughly 24 hours. At that point, the software freezes in OS/2 although if I catch it soon enough, OS/2 will still respond and I can back out and restart the PLC software. Otherwise it freezes the OS/2 guest OS, and the host operating system will not open any programs claiming lack of memory errors.

I have tried to force simulate the issue, but have only found I am able to do this when pulling up multiple trends within the PLC software. At that point, I can watch the available memory on the host OS dropping, and never regaining memory. I do not understand why this memory is being used, when I have only alloted 64MB to the guest OS, yet it seems to be using all of my physical memory.

I apologize for being long-winded, but any advise/direction you could suggest would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Scott

No Where Man said, on May 5, 2007 6:38 PM:

"Virtual memory and RAM are the same thing" is incorrect. Virtual memory is on the HHD, is not physical RAM, and is about 100 or so times slower than RAM.

While some, including a few manufacturers tend to suggest that by increasing RAM one can eliminate Virtual memory, I must disagree. While theoretically, and given a large enough increase in RAM this may in [some cases] prove correct for a while, I seriously would not recommend it. At all! Get enough memory intensive apps and services running at once and guess what? On the other side, too much Virtual memory doesn't hurt provided the memory is available to spare. Virtual memory is Virtually free, so why even take the chance of crashing and loosing data.

Scott said, on May 7, 2007 2:21 PM:

I am somewhat confused by your response No Where Man. Windows XP is currently regulating the host machines virtual memory for me, it is not disabled. Should I hard code it in at 1.5*physicalRAM or other? The virtual PC config is setup with 64MB to run OS2. The physical RAM is 1GB.
I seem to be losing physical RAM as the Virtual PC(OS/2) runs over time, which to me suggests a memory leak in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

Hopefully, I am clear enough.

Joe Cavallo said, on May 8, 2007 4:03 PM:

what's the best way to format a c drive windows xp home?

dhayalan said, on May 12, 2007 6:53 AM:

sir,
i am used for o.s windows xp.i have 1 gb ram is updated now .how is increase my system virtual memory speed.

Daved said, on May 13, 2007 12:33 AM:

Thank you for this information it helps me

Graham said, on May 19, 2007 1:38 AM:

Hi, googled my problem and found this site. My search was 'svchost.exe system using cup memory' where said process is using all the CPU. PC has been running OK and this morning has been playing up. Got so bad that Cntl / Alt + Delete failed to do anything. PC not left on at all. Other PC we have has a Grisoft (?) AVG computer scan that fires up all the time and has to be shut down. For some reason it does not do it on this PC although the download was the same as I recall (update version of free edition). All PCs seem to have been hitting problems after going wireless with Netgear WG111v2. these seem to operate fast and then go slow (seems slower than the old dialup).
svchost.exe is worst file at present with avgw.exe using a bit of CPU. Mem Usage has svchost way up top with waol.exe showing 58000K for most of the time , wuauclt at 35000K and MsMpEng.exe & avgw.exe at around 26000K. Any advice welcome. Thanks Graham

leslie said, on May 19, 2007 12:27 PM:

i've read what you told we need to do but can you really show me step by step what to do because i don't want something to go wrong while doing this without assistance

Scott said, on May 22, 2007 1:55 PM:

Regarding my May 4th/7th posting...
Running OS/2 as a guest OS in MS Virtual PC 2007.

Okay, I stand corrected... The virtual memory within Windows XP Pro (Host OS) was factory set at IBM to custom min/max allocations previously. I set it to let Windows manage it on Friday, and let everything run over the weekend. I verified the RAM allocation to the OS/2 VPC image is also a fixed 64MB and it reflects that in perfmon stats. The perfmon stat that is still eluding me appears to be Allocated Pages to the OS/2 VM. I show the following:
Last 69578
Average 69578
Maximum 69578
Minimum 69578

All other perfmon stats read zero except like I said, the Allocated MB are fixed at 64MB.

I read somewhere I can set the initial size of the page file while leaving the maximum blank. Is this possible, maybe through the registry??? I cannot get this to work in XP's GUI.

The host PC is an brand new IBM ThinkCentre MT-M 8808-8HU w/ 1GB RAM, I have a 70GB drive w/53GB free.
The sole purpose of this machine is to run OS2 in a virtual environment, but this memory??? issue crashing over time is proving to be a show stopper.

Upon returning yesterday morning after letting it run over the weekend...
The GuestOS (OS/2warp4w/FixPack15) image was frozen, and all attempts to open anything on the host machine gives quota errors, or Win32 program not valid errors, etc. There is not enough disk space to save state, so my only option is to close the OS/2 VM. At that point most everything in WindowsXP begins to function more or less, but to get it to run absolutely normal, a reboot is required.

At this point, I am at a loss. It works great for hours and hours, and then...arrgghhh! I have not had this issue running any other OS's with MS VPC 2007. Is there a program that will monitor these various aspects of the VPC VM's resource usage on the physical machine? I have been using perfmon, and taskmgr, but am not making any real headway thus far.

Thanks in advance for any and all help with this.

Thanks,
Scott

Suresh said, on May 26, 2007 5:47 AM:

Im upgraded to windows xp,on my Laptop with 512 mb Ram, when i turned on my computer it told me i'm running out of virtual memory. My problem is that it wont let me do anything...if i can even get the computer to boot up, it wont let me open any programs including task manager...
any ideas??

nora said, on May 27, 2007 12:59 PM:

It is posible to uninstall internet explore and then install again. this is the one that is taking all my virtual memory from my pc

Smiley said, on May 27, 2007 8:54 PM:

my computer says virtual memory is low how can i fix this problem on windows xp? PLEASE HELP

Shawn said, on June 5, 2007 7:13 AM:

Trying to ghost a Windows 2000 Server system drive but I have a "low virtual memory" error that prevents logon, and redisplays the error, neverending. I need to ghost a system drive to a larger capacity because it's too full (~1Gb free). I tryed to make the pagefile size 0 as recommended by Microsoft and then re-ghost the drive, but same issue occurs. (Note I am using the main Administrator account but it acts like I don't have rights to the pagefile.sys or something)
I can change my virtual memory sizes on my working drive, but never can on my ghosted drives.
Any workarounds?

Shawn said, on June 5, 2007 7:15 AM:

Trying to ghost a Windows 2000 Server system drive but I have a "low virtual memory" error that prevents logon, and redisplays the error, neverending. I need to ghost a system drive to a larger capacity because it's too full (~1Gb free). I tryed to make the pagefile size 0 as recommended by Microsoft and then re-ghost the drive, but same issue occurs. (Note I am using the main Administrator account but it acts like I don't have rights to the pagefile.sys or something)
I can change my virtual memory sizes on my working drive, but never can on my ghosted drives, something about pagefile.sys is confused or locked out?
Any workarounds?

Shawn said, on June 5, 2007 9:33 AM:

Trying to ghost a Windows 2000 Server system drive but I have a "low virtual memory" error that prevents logon, and redisplays the error, neverending. I need to ghost a system drive to a larger capacity because it's too full (~1Gb free). I tryed to make the pagefile size 0 as recommended by Microsoft and then re-ghost the drive, but same issue occurs. (Note I am using the main Administrator account but it acts like I don't have rights to the pagefile.sys or something)
I can change my virtual memory sizes on my working drive, but never can on my ghosted drives, something about pagefile.sys is confused or locked out?
Any workarounds?

kunal said, on June 7, 2007 6:50 AM:

Hi,
Can anybody please resolve my problem?
In my computer (processor 2.4, 845 GL Motherborad, 512 MB Ram, 40 GB harddisk [with 20 x2 partition]) whenever i go to windows folder property in c drive it shows 11 Gb Data size. If I Select all folder and files with hidden and see property it shows 2 GB data size.
Why is it so? can any body tell me how to reduce that hidden misterious size?

crystal said, on June 13, 2007 3:20 AM:

How do i know which one is the best for me? My system is running slow and bringin up the error messages!

Amy said, on June 29, 2007 10:12 PM:

Great I have been playing a game and getting this error and now I know how to fix it thanks

illmatic said, on June 30, 2007 9:40 PM:

Thanks heaps!!! my computer is suddenly 50x faster, found out the program, it was using.. well lets say.. 1,470,000 about that much VM, yes so im happy =]

Emmanuel Amoah said, on July 11, 2007 9:42 AM:

pls i am having error on my pc any time i try working with it. that is low virtual memory,pls can get the solution for that,by your Experience thak you. i

Jack C said, on July 13, 2007 11:26 PM:

i think the first ones are fake, but anayway, nice useful info.. oh my .. my IE's taking up alot...

Anjanesh said, on July 19, 2007 12:44 AM:

I have 256MB + 512MB + 1GB = 1.75GB RAM, yet I still get this "too little virtual memory" inspite of only Commit charge showing 900MB / 2007MB !

James said, on July 19, 2007 5:54 AM:

Honestly, thank you man!
I have to admit, I really hate computers at times. Especially mine.

I've always put my speed down to storage space on the Hard Drive or viruses.

However every now and then I would get this message "Virtual Memory..". On a whim I looked it up and found your site. I followed your instructions and found something twice to three times the size of my IE.

It was called ccSvcHst.exe or something. Turned out to be a glitch of Norton or something. The second I closed it things started going up to speed. I'm now working on fixing this error and checking out the other processes.

Once again, thanks for the help!

Ingo said, on July 19, 2007 7:27 AM:

How can i stop internet explorer from using so much virtual memory

d said, on July 31, 2007 1:00 PM:

I try to change the virtual memory but Windows XP doesn't let me. I go through control panel/system properties/advanced/performance options/ advanced/ virtual memory/custom size and I change the page file requirements, only no change ever really takes place. The box below continues to read "total paging file size for all drives: 1406."
Nothing I do makes a difference. And a program I am trying to run that requires 3mb virtual memory fails to start up and keeps repeating the error message "not enough virtual memory." My base RAM is 1500mb. What is going on and how do I fix it?

Kimberly said, on August 5, 2007 1:11 PM:

Ok. Now. I tried to fix my problem. Yes, I'm young (Only 14) but I've been dealing with computers since I was little. And my father worked with them as well. But, currently. I was trying to fix my virtual memory problem. But, by closing down my Internet Explorer, my laptop's Start button as well as background image and entire task bar will not show. What do you think is the problem? Everything is displaying in black and the only window I can keep open at the moment is my FireFox. Your help is much appreciated.

Ryan said, on August 19, 2007 8:01 AM:

Great WEb Site Very Helpful Many Thanks!

Sheila said, on September 3, 2007 10:03 PM:

To Kimberly,

You are closing explorer.exe by mistake. You want to close iexplore.exe to get rid of Internet Explorer as necessary.

Prince said, on September 4, 2007 2:19 AM:

Hi Dave.I have a similar problem witm most of the people who hosted but still my problem is not resolved.I right clicked on my computer,properties,advance,perfomance,advanced and set virtual memory to sys virtual mem size but that did not work. On Task manager,processes mmsconfig.exe is running @ 229.777kb and i dont even know what it is plus there's a lot of processes that running that i dont know of.
Every time the users open our database it give a virtual memory error,PLEASE HELP.

Guru said, on September 6, 2007 11:23 PM:

hey dave.. i m having the problems tht nowadays most ppl have.. my task manager has been disabled.. wen i press CTRL+ALT+DEL a message pops up "your task manager has been disabled".
I really dont kno wat to do.. is there a solution to my prob???
To shutdown some of the processes in my sys which is takin to much of the systems VM, wat to do??? i m not able to access any of the features of an admin..?? plz do help.. ty

Tyler said, on September 16, 2007 8:49 PM:

I've been having the problem but i don't think its a memory leak or anything, ive uninstalled and reinstalled the program, i have 1gig of ram but when i checked my page file size it was only 768 to 1536 or something so i changed it to 1.5 times 1gig for the minimum and 2 times for maximum, and i think i fixed it

Shawn said, on September 17, 2007 7:33 PM:

So simple! You're awesome T_T

nitish kumar roy said, on October 3, 2007 4:30 PM:

hi dave,
i have some problem about virtual memory of system. system shows the message that the virtual memory is low. can i increase the size of virtual memory. in this system,paging file is already double of ram. can i increase the size of virtual memory. if i will do this process then will i face any problem in this system.

kim said, on October 10, 2007 4:45 AM:

My offending program is waol.exe ? what can i do ?

Cory Kesty said, on October 15, 2007 5:22 PM:

I'm running Windows 2000 with a 512MB RAM. Recently it has been painfully slow. I realised there is a small program called SVCHOST.EXE that now takes up my processor time. Where did it coming from? How I deal with it?

Q said, on October 23, 2007 7:18 PM:

YOU MADE IT SO EASY FOR ME TO FIND THE PROBLEM. THANKS!

charitha said, on October 23, 2007 11:21 PM:

You r really good.keep up the good work!
Wish you all the best!

goodfish said, on October 24, 2007 6:42 AM:

Dave, you rock my world.

VistaUser said, on October 24, 2007 7:44 AM:

Sorry wrong input for the first comment...here's the solution for windows vista users.

http://unlockforus.blogspot.com/2007/10/unlockme-low-memory-warning-on-windows.html

Renee said, on October 28, 2007 1:06 AM:

I did all that you recommended and found out that the biggest size of memory used was 24.576K, VM size: 377,008K by swdsvc.exe (User: System) I assume that I am not supposed to touch the system. The next biggest memory is: iexplore.exe 4 rows of it. Which program is that one? and what am I supposed to do about it.
Thanks for your help
Renee (a 73 years old grand'ma, ususally good with computers :)

siva said, on November 5, 2007 5:12 AM:

I have a windows 2000 system, and I upgraded from 10gig to 32gig via ghost2003. The system gets up to log in and then goes to a grey screen with a big box that says "Paging file does not exist, or is too small" and a bunch of other related things. I cannot get past this, I tried safe mode and it stops at the same place.how to increase virtual memory at logon window itself, is there any command to increase it from the dos.
we are using 3GHz processor 1GB Physical RAM, 160 GB HD.

Thanks&Regards,

Micheal said, on November 20, 2007 7:11 AM:

Thanks! Finally i got it resolved!
I can 100% recommed this for other peoples!

Dulith Perera said, on November 29, 2007 11:29 PM:

hi Dave,

when i dbl click drivers on My Computer(C:,D:,E:)
it open in new window.already i selected radio button in Folder option,General,open folder in same window.hoe do i solve this problem.pls tel me.

thanx.

bryan said, on December 8, 2007 10:48 AM:

thanks a lot dave..

thanks for ur advice on troubleshooting low virtual memory..

by doing ur advice, my pc is now back to normal..

thanks a lot dave!!

Dewain Barrett said, on December 20, 2007 10:44 PM:

Hi Dave,
I have a comuter that is telling me that my virtual memory is too low. We are running windows XP, I did ctrl, alt deleteand there is a program that is using way too much memory. It is syssvcnt.exe and vm size at the moment 1,974,328 K, we have 1 gig of ram on our computer. Pleas let me no what i can do with problem.

thankyou dewain.

Martin said, on January 8, 2008 10:02 AM:

Hey I have a Intel pentium 4 2,80 Ghz processor with Windows XP home edition SP2 with 1 gig of ram and im always getting the Memory low error when i load windows, i've tryed alot of things including RegCure and other error fixing programs with no luck, I made sure that the Administrators and System account we're at full access and still the problem continues, Im pretty much pulling my hair here lol, let me know what you think or if you'd need more information on my system, Thank you very much

Bhupesh said, on January 16, 2008 11:23 AM:

I am a Physics Teacher and You have all the qualities of an excellent teacher as one philosopher said " A teacher can affect eternity "

Sorry about the spellings I am an Indian

Suraj Kashyap said, on January 25, 2008 7:44 AM:

Hi! I've Intel Celeron D 2.13Ghz processor , 256mb RAM, 64mb Graphics Card, 40gb Hard Disc in my PC. I had installed NFS Most Wanted game in my PC, but when I play it, after 20 or 30 minutes of play, game closes itself and my PC display that 'Your System's Virtual Memory is Low'. I've all the requirement which this game needs, then what's wrong. I can't upgrade my pc yet, I've to wait for it for about 1 year. So, is there any way from which i can play this game?

Brent said, on January 25, 2008 4:00 PM:

I'm confused. I'm looking at virtual memory numbers now -- but how much is 'too much?' My problem is that my laptop is -- sporadically, but especially on startup -- way too slow. I've already slimmed down the number of apps on startup.

sharon said, on January 30, 2008 6:53 AM:

tnx po this info

sha

Claudio said, on February 5, 2008 6:43 PM:

Hi Dave and thanks for your help, I also get the low virtual memory message and I found out that Aolsoftware.exe is using 855.000k of VM even when not in use.
Thanks again

Harini said, on February 9, 2008 10:25 PM:

thanks for the info...

Gary Williams said, on February 18, 2008 10:04 AM:

Novice, can't and /or don't know where to look for my URL. Computer very sloe, have low virtual memory problems. Can I close AOLSSC.exe, Explorer.exe, mcvsescn.exe, svchost.exe, winlogon.exe, and aolsoftware.exe safely?

luke said, on February 25, 2008 9:47 AM:

hello
please could you help me i would like to know how to enable your task player.
thanks

Melissa Kimpling said, on March 5, 2008 8:13 PM:

1) I am running Windows XP, winbook V-series/G330, Intel (R) Celern (R) M, Processor 1.50 GHz, 224 MB of Ram. Recently it has been very slow. I tried opening Task Manager and realized there are several small program called SVCHOST.EXE. What is this and how do I deal with it?

2. Since I did my Defragmentation, the system has been giving an error message on booting; Virtual memory low,(which I increased my virtural memory but not sure id its good) and when I open my Micro soft outlook, I will "Paging file does not exist,or wininstaller missing reeinstall Microsoft outlook. I do that and it doesn't work. I will open outlook and it will shut down on its own this problem reappears each time I boot. Please help.

andri said, on March 13, 2008 6:14 PM:

I'm running a program Multimedia Center but,if i close this program always appear this comment "

Runtime error!

program:..common files\sonic shared\sonic central\Main\Mediahub.exe

R6025
-pure virtual function call

please help me.how i can fix this problem.

belle said, on March 15, 2008 7:28 AM:

Im running windows xp, when i turned on my computer it told me i'm running out of virtual memory, run time error and application error pops up often. My problem is that it wont let me do anything. While reading some of the ideas here I open the windows task manager and found IEXPLORE.EXE got the highest memory usage. Can I uninstall it and how can I reinstall it? How can I possibly increase my virtual memory? Thanks in advance for helping.

Anand said, on March 19, 2008 9:17 PM:

Logging on to windows 2003 domain server (PDC) from XP client takes long time.
It says 'applying perosnal settings', and at this point it almost takes 15 minutes ?
How do I resolve the problem.

kash said, on March 25, 2008 12:00 PM:

hello,

I have a laptop compaq presario x1000. it was giving me msg saying virtual memory too low. but now i cant even get to start menu when i start the laptop i just see windows xp screen and its trying to load something thats all. it stops right there tried rebooting nothing is working. i am out of warranty. how to fix it. thanks in advance

Roger said, on April 2, 2008 1:44 PM:

Really thanks a lot for the info.
Helped me a lot :)

Jamie said, on April 2, 2008 6:22 PM:

Excellent, super fast fix - thought there wasnt much left to learn, obviously mistaken!

mmmm ipoint.exe 2GB leaky

OleSkoolJimi said, on April 9, 2008 5:17 AM:

Dave,
Not knowing how to resolve the virtual memory issue, I came here to your site and explored the possible resolutions and I have to say that I was most pleased with mu newly found discovery. It is people like who appreciates people like you and I wish you great success and you deserve mucg love for helping us that are quite the novice.
Keep it real and I am sure that I will visit you again.
It's all good!
Jimbo

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

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How can I fix "too little virtual memory" in Windows?

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