Monday, July 28, 2008

Reducing size of Virtual Memory

When a program is started, the program is taken from the secondary storage device - Hard Disk (HDD) and stored temporarily in the main (primary) storage device - RAM, for fast access. From here, the program is taken to CPU for processing. When the size of the RAM is small, and when it is insufficient to hold all the programs that are currently running, you will have to terminate existing program to start a new application. To solve this problem Virtual Memory is used.
In this concept, the application that is taking up space in the RAM and the part of the memory which is not used recently is taken and stored in the HDD. (Note: Original file in the HDD will be altered only when the file or its properties is saved). This frees up some space in the RAM. Thus it extends the main memory virtually.We can change the maximum and minimum size of this virtual memory that you want the OS to allocate.
Here is , how it is done.
1) Open Control Panel
2) Open Administrative tools (switch to Classic View)
3) Open Computer Management
4) Right click Computer Management (Local) and select properties
5) Open Advanced Tab --> Performace settings --> Change Virtual Memory.
Note: If the virtual memory size is reduced, the system will require a restart. Also, the space allocated for Virtual memory cant be used to store anything.

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