memory usage in Vista (Vista Business)

[swhli]

I have a PC with 2GB of RAM running Vista. The problem that I have is Vista is taking too much RAM (1.6GB) as cached, leaving no physical RAM available. I am wondering if there is a way to limit how much RAM (not harddrive's virtual memory) Vista can use for caching.

Thanks

[JoeP517]

Vista has a good memory management system. It is an outdated, incorrect notion that a large amount of RAM in use is bad. Vista tries to keep things in memory that will be used. But, if it needs more memory for a program you want to run it will take it.Also, in Task Manager on the Performance tab Cached memory is the amount of RAM used recently for system resources. Do a search of 'help and support' for "task manager performance" for more information.

Joe

[Pilgrim]

Joe,

You are spot on! Vista uses a different memory management system compared to previous versions of Windows. And, it works great. "Cached" memory is memory ready for instant use and thus apps open faster, etc. I have 3 gigs of RAM installed and nearly all of it gets cached on startup. Everything opens almost instantly, except of course Photoshop CS2, but even that RAM-hungry application opens much faster in Vista than it did on my XP system with 1 gig of RAM. See the screenshot below which shows my memory allocation by Vista.

[JoeP517]

Every time Microsoft releases new software there are many discussions all over the Internet about features and how they work or don't work. Unfortunately for most people these discussions are often 'led' by people who have opinions only or anecdotal 'evidence' and not hard facts. See Windows Administration: Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 2 -- TechNet Magazine, March 2007 for a discussion (at a somewhat high level) of Vista memory management by Mark Russinovich. Mark now works for Microsoft but for a long time has been acknowledged as one of the foremost Windows experts in the industry.

Joe

[swhli]

(Edited by HansV to make URL clickable - see <!help=19>Help 19<!/help>)

that for the info. Apparently there are a lot of discussions on this topics elsewhere

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html