Lets Talk About Virtual Memory Settings?

Can I Tweak Virtual Memory Settings?

Okay in layman's terms please, You have two types typically the first being RAM or "Random Access Memory the second being, ROM "Read Only Memory". Think about this a moment if you randomly access something you are searching for it. If you have found what you were looking for then you have to see it or read it. That is typically the difference between RAM and ROM. One exists and one floats around ready for action at any time. Most systems have cache as well as program ram somewhat the same thing. You can tweak these settings for optimal performance. Follow these steps "see graphic to the left. Go in and at least take a look. I recommend not messing with these settings if you are not comfortable with this. Although not that critical it can slow you way down and sometimes stop you from loading software boot up screen if this happens simply reboot in safe mode "F8" and go back to the My Computer Screen go to properties and reset back to system managed reboot and that is it done. Now to continue, see graphic to the left of this blog part. This is the section where you have a program memory tweak as well as a cache for the paging file size.

What a paging file does is basically record events or your computers movements while you are working on it. It records pages you have been to or links or just about everything you have done on your hard disk. Notice the total paging file size in MB. That is what I have allotted on my machine. Which will be used for programs. I have processor time as well as a greater share of memory to run programs. If you were to check the background services this would be used for things that you have open already along with what you are working on. It is good practice if you are a user that does not close things and opens a lot of windows at the same time you will want to check that and leave the lower box alone to use memory for programs. Your system will become unstable if you decide to check the system cache and lower the recommendded amount a ram to use any lower than what is system recommended. I think a visual here gives you a good idea as to how this works.

In order to not have to use any tweaks at all simply learn to close programs that you are not using while opening another one. Another good process is a RAM checker and optimizer program that you can see actually working in the background. I use Free Ram XP Pro link to their site is Free Ram XP Pro


Once you click on change you will see this system page tool, here you will see in this graphic a system monitored process set. I personally like to take control of this feature so I choose custom size which allows me to change the settings myself and manage my system and how much virtual memory size I need for example if you ever see that little yellow triangle pop up and say that your virtual memory is to low for the system to handle your work you can go here and raise it typically 1/3 the size of your max memory that is installed on your system. It may take you some tweaking to get it just right. You can also go to the task manager and click on the performance tab and see what the sizes are. See graphic below "Windows Task Manager" You will see what is being used and can adjust if you see more than 1/3 % being used to monitor your programs.

This along with many other tweaks can save you some memory allocation as well as speed up your system. Most folks do not know these things, systems these days are I can say pre-set which work well with no changes needed. However after the user decides to start loading their software and program files you will find it sometimes necessary to begin to change certain tweaks to keep your system optimized. There are several software programs that do these things for you, you will find hundreds of them that virtually do the same thing. Here is a list I have compiled below to get you there quicker to the software that I know works and have personally tested and used over the years. Many software programs cost and are relatively inexpensive. However some of the free programs which are freeware while others are shareware. You need these essentials these days in the modern computing world. Here is a suggested list. If you do not have any of this going on you might consider these A.S.A.P.

1. Registry Cleaner
2. Ad-ware & Spy-ware Software
3. "Must" Have Firewall & Anti-virus Software
4. Pop Blocker Software
5. A Good Cleaning Software All Around
6. Backup Hard Drive Software
7. Dump Programs and Software that you do not use.

Very Important
Disk Clean Everyday
Defragment Files Each Day

Blog written by: John A. Crowder 2008
You may use any material you wish to publish free only not for profit. Any comments or suggestions send to jcrowder0027@gmail.com

Do I Want Vista Upgrade

MS Vista First Impressions

I received an MS Vista beta DVD on Friday. The note tried instilling a sense of urgency by giving me a deadline of Tuesday for feedback. Unfortunately, very little of the beta support infrastructure was in place. When I did run into problems, the first person I talked with on the support line had no clue there was a super special Vista beta program going on. The email, chat and web site forums were all 404. Having just finished a beta program of my own on Friday, I cringed at the idea of my friend canceling another vacation because the beta prolonged itself unnecessarily. I sent him a note and muttered on.

Based on the survey/Vista Ready tool, it said I needed "Vista Ultimate." However, the "upgrade" option didn't work because I didn't have 15Gb free on my windows drive. (I had "only" 6.9Gb free.) The fresh install on another disk partition ran for two hours, finishing sometime after I got my kids to bed. Its lack of chattiness and prompts is a huge improvement over the previous installers. As a bonus, it automatically selected the proper maxxed out video resolution instead of the pedestrian 800x600, 16-color minimalist. The total footprint was just over 10Gb, without any additional applications. To my knowledge, no official system requirements have been published yet.

I'm not sure how much the initial space requirement will be an issue. See, I repartition my windows disks for two unrelated reasons. First, it's a way to avoid all of the hard-coded up selling game crap and internet service crap that gets added from the Dell Windows XP media edition installation CD. The second reason is a smaller system partition takes less time to check, fix, defragment, scan, etc an upper partition. This has also saved my application data when there have (previously) been issues with something hording the system partition.

Out of the box, Vista was very functional. The only problems I ran into were with setting up wireless networking and my modem. Normally if I have problems connecting to my own, secure wireless network (e.g. I couldn't remember the unbroadcast SSID), I'd pop onto my neighbor's unprotected network, which also works because he hasn't changed the log in or password of his router, either. The wireless wizard wouldn't show me the insecure (unsecured?) networks with the built-in card. I couldn't figure out how to get connected sans hard line, so I rebooted into XP and grabbed the settings. The built-in modem, which I wanted to try just for giggles, caused a BSoD. On the ensuing reboot, the machine phoned home. I didn't try to mess with the modem again.

The overall user interface is very crisp, except for the bulbous icons. (There is a way to notch them down a bit.) There's a dashboard on the right with a stock set of widgets. This looks similar to what Google was doing with their own portal. The default photo rotate tool (and its stock imagery) were very distracting. Each time it would flip, I kept looking over. The other widget, an analog clock, seemed out of place with its digital cousin lurking in the bottom right corner. Some of my twenty something friends may have difficulty knowing what the "hands" mean. :-) The dashboard widgets all have transparent backgrounds, making them look smaller than they would have in previous OSes.

How many prompts must a man click through?
The start menu rocks. For keyboard shortcut-artists like me, I can just do windows and start typing commands I want to run and it finds them (like Google Desktop). For example, I downloaded my company's product from the web site and just typed the "setuptecplot" and it figured out which directory the browser had saved stuff in. No more skulking to c:\documents and settings!

Security seems much tighter than before in a very, very annoying way. When I ran my setup script from the command line, I initially received an "are you sure you want to do this" type message. (Picture 1) Yes, that's what I typed. Next, I get a "The publisher could not be verified" message. After that, I get a "User account control: An unidentified program wants access to your computer." With each of these prompts, the screen dims (except for the dialog) and all user control is locked out until I select Cancel or Allow. If the program were signed, it would say "A program needs your permission to continue [...] User Account Control stops unauthorized changes to your computer. If you started this program, please continue. (Description of program)" I understand why they're doing this, but dang is it annoying.

I installed my company's product with the wrong license type. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just edit the local configuration file..." no dice The system sets it up so the casual user can't do that sort of thing. In fact, most of the C drive is set up this way. The takeaway is application vendors will definitely want to streamline the installation/start up and make it consistent. Or they'll ratchet down security.

There's a system performance rating tool. My laptop is a "3" on their scale:

* Processor: Pentium M, 1.86Ghz = 3.4
* Memory: 2Gb = 3.5
* Primary hard disk: 5.94Gb free, 15.88Gb total: 3.5
* Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GO 6800 (WDDM): 5.9 -- w00t!
* Gaming graphics: 256Mb: 4.6

It appears the intent is that applications will publish their performance ratings. To quote from the help: "[...] You can use the performance rating number to confidently buy programs and other software that are rated to match your computer's performance level. For example, if this computer has a System Peformance Rating of 3, then you can confidently purchase any software designed for this version of Windows that requires a computer with a rating of 3 or less." There's a link to "View software available for my rating" that goes to windowsmarketplace.com, which I never quite understood. However, visiting the site tickled the IE7 security thing again because it wanted to install the Flash8.exe player.

This Guy Plays Two Guitars

Why Do I Have Less Drive Space?
Your hard drive may show less space than the published specifications due to a number of reasons.

1. The way size is calculated and displayed.
2. Any "Partitions" on the disk will change the total in a specific partition.
3. Hidden files and folders decrease available space.
4. Compression increases the apparent size, but not the physical size.
5. Drives larger than the OS or Drivers natively supports.

First, the definition of a megabytes (or gigabytes) is a unit of data storage capacity measured in 1,048,576 bytes (or 1024KB). The larger the numbers, the more apparent the size difference will be when listing the size as megabytes (or gigabytes) versus bytes. Actually, both numbers are correct. The noticeable difference is due to the 1024KB definition of a megabyte. This is why a 95.3GB hard drive can also be listed as having 102 billion bytes of total space. Just think of it as "round off" In the screen shot at right: The first number is the total number of bytes, the second number is based on the number of megabytes or gigabytes.

Second, some computers have a non-DOS hard drive partition that is used for features such as Save to Disk, Hibernation, or Recovery. This partition is not normally reported by the operating system, although it can be viewed using a disk partition utility. This is very common on desktops and laptops. NOTE: Partition information will be created or formatted automatically during initial system setup and a system recovery.

Third, by default, all system files are hidden and cannot be seen. This may adversely affect the reporting of available hard drive space. You can set your Folder Options so you view system and hidden files and folders, but do be careful as changes to system files can adversely affect your system.

Fourth, if you turn on Compression for a drive, it will increase reported free space and used space, but since compression is based upon the actual contents, this number is not fixed, but will change as files are added or changed.

Fifth, older operating systems did not support some of today's larger drives, so the total space reported may be much smaller than the drive specifications.

It is also worth noting that bad sectors are corrected by your operating system and can change the total drive space, free space, or used space as well.

So as long as a drive is reporting a value approximately close to the specification value, you can be comfortable that you received the right drive and that you are getting to correct data storage. Of course, tuning of your drive's partitions and options can yield optimal values, but this is not something for the average user to explore.

Got Enough Memory? Bet You'll Need More! Windows Vista and today's software applications make much greater demands on your system's memory. Adding peripherals, like webcams, USB hard drives, and complex Internet pages, all take memory. Watching DVD movies, or watching videos on the web, or playing PC based games demand increased memory. So take full advantage of your system's potential, your operating system's enhancement and entertainment capabilities, and your software's productivity by expanding your system memory! The best time to add more memory is when you buy your system! Get the memory that's right for your computer, whether laptop, desktop, or All-In-One. Click Here for our Memory Upgrade Options. »

Shared Memory? Or Where Did My Memory Go? Your computer uses memory to run your Operating System, applications, peripherals, and to generate and display graphics on your computer monitor. Video memory is a form of RAM, and is either built into your motherboard; or on a graphics card (video card). Depending on the motherboard's configuration, and that of the video card (if separate or built-in to the motherboard), your computer may have to draw on its own RAM memory to meet its video memory needs. This creates shared memory, where your computer’s RAM will be shared between its own Processor (CPU) and its graphics chip. The result is that some systems will have shared memory, some will not. If you have 2GB (for example) of system memory installed, you may notice that your system reports significantly less memory. This is because your system is using shared memory for your video. What can you do about this? You can actually configure this shared memory through your computer’s BIOS settings. However, this is a setting best left alone, since it is typically optimized for display performance, and making changes may impact display resolutions, and other video capabilities. The simplest solution is usually to either: increase your system memory; or to upgrade the video hardware. By upgrading to a new video card with built-in video memory, then turning off shared memory, you will free your system to use it's maximum potential memory, and provide your system with much more robust video features. Click Here for our Memory Options » Click Here for the latest Video Cards »

How Much Memory Do You Really Have? When you look at the specifications for a computer, it will display the installed memory, and typically the maximum memory that can be installed. However, while these are real values, they represent a potential useable memory. The actual useable memory may be different from these values. The reason is simply that a computer may configured to use shared memory, which reduces the amount of RAM that is available to the CPU by using some of it for other purposes, such as for video memory. In some cases, you can control the maximum useable memory through system settings, and by upgrading to a video card that has internal onboard video memory. But always remember, that the amount of memory that your system reports, is not always the amount of actual installed memory. If you find that you need more memory, we suggest expanding your system memory, since this is the most effective performance increase, and the one that is easiest to perform .