Increase Virtual Memory in Windows 7

If your personal computer has a small hard drive, it's not uncommon to experience a "low virtual memory" error when using your computer. Systems with Windows Vista on them will rarely encounter this error, as they usually have larger hard drives than Windows XP machines. It is even more likely that you will experience this error if you've had your computer for a long time; it is most likely bogged down with information.

Recently there has been a resurgence in the "low virtual memory" error as more and more systems are using Windows 7 SSD drives, also known as "solid-state drives". Windows 7 is an excellent operating system, but its SSD drives can cause problems because their capacity to store information is less. One of the primary issues is that the Windows 7 operating system takes up a significant amount of room in its own right, not leaving a lot of memory space for you to play with. When consumers choose the cheapest Windows 7 computer available – usually the 8GB or the 16GB – they end up with an inferior machine in terms of memory.

If the operating system itself takes up too much room, this means that the myriad of programs, applications and files that you want to put on your computer are going to overload your SSD drives. You will know that your system has been overloaded when you try to run basic applications and you encounter the "low virtual memory" error message. If your computer starts to run out of memory space, your operating system will realize this and it will reserve a small portion of the SSD drive space for virtual memory. At this point you have even less free memory and your computer will start to run very slowly. Programs and applications will not run as they should and it will become very frustrating to use your computer. If the situation gets really bad you will encounter the "Blue Screen of Death." The blue screen occurs when you try to save information on your computer and there is no memory left.

An easy way to fix the virtual memory problem is to purchase more RAM (Random Access Memory) for your computer. This might not entirely solve the problem, however, as some files and programs are designed to be saved in virtual memory. If this is the case, you will need to acquire a larger Windows 7 SSD drive or another hard drive that will act as virtual memory.

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