Task Manager Memory Listing

[Guest]

When I access Task Manager, under the performance tab Physical Memory is
listed.
My PC has 512M of memory installed but Task Manager shows Available Memory:
182568K, System Cache:246268K.
Does this mean that I have only 182568K of RAM available to run applications?
The only applications that I have open are Anti-Virus, Firewall and Internet
Explorer and launched at startup.
What is the System Cache 246268K used for?

DJF

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

When I access Task Manager, under the performance tab Physical Memory is
listed.
My PC has 512M of memory installed but Task Manager shows Available Memory:
182568K, System Cache:246268K.
Does this mean that I have only 182568K of RAM available to run applications?

Yes, but Windows can share memory between applications. You will find
that the old memory limitations in MS-DOS do not apply to Windows XP.

The only applications that I have open are Anti-Virus, Firewall and Internet
Explorer and launched at startup.
What is the System Cache 246268K used for?

This is for to buffer data before it is written to a disk or to avoid
to have it been read from the disk if the data is used frequently
(VCACHE in earlier versions of Windows).

 

[Alex Nichol]

My PC has 512M of memory installed but Task Manager shows Available Memory:
182568K, System Cache:246268K.
Does this mean that I have only 182568K of RAM available to run applications?

No. It is very misleading - it would be better called 'memory for which
Windows can currently find any conceivable use'. A lot of what is in
use is cached files kept around, 'just in case'. If a program needs
memory they will be dropped. Read up my page
www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm