Virtual Memory?

[Craig Hanrahan]

I keep getting a tiny pop-up on my task bar that
says "Windows Virtual Memory is low" and it says that it
is trying to make it bigger somehow.

My question is: What is Virtual Memory, and how is it
used?

Thank you

 

[Chris Lanier]

Greetings

Please see "Virtual Memory in Windows XP"
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

 

[Tom Swift]

Very briefly: When Windows determines that it wants more memory than you
have installed, it reserves a portion of your hard disk and uses it as it
would actual RAM. This additional memory is called "virtual memory". The
portion of your hard drive used for virtual memory is called the page file
or the paging file (old name: swap file).

As you can imagine, virtual memory is a huge topic about which much has been
written. You can delve into it until you reach your level of geek-comfort.
You might want to start with this article by Alex Nichol:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm.

Tom Swift