Hi, Lately I've been getting this message: "your system is low on virtual memory. windows is increasing the size of your memory paging file..." I have abouot 14g of free space on a 80g drive. Can someone tell me what this means. Thank you.

usually if you run out of ram windows starts to write the extra memory onto the hd, and if your paging file is small it cant write into it anymore and gives this message. To fix this, eather get more ram, or go to control panel/system/advanced/performance under settings you will find memory and you can chagne paging size in there. However its not recomended to make your page file 10 gb...usually 500-1500 mb...

Make sure your initial virtual memory settings are high enough. My experience has been that Windows 2000 uses virtual memory EVEN IF you have plenty of avaliable ram (the reverse is also true, windows 2000 never fully utilizes all ram, it always leaves a couple megs free) I've noticed this by carefully watching the memory manager over a period of time. Mine is set to something like 700 MB. When I tried to reduce this to 0, windows 2000 complained that not enough virtual memory was left. Hope this helps.

w2k setting for pagefile (or in MS parlance 'virtual memory', boo-hiss) can be changed at Right-click 'My Computer' Advanced (tab) Performance Options (button) Change ... (button) and should be set to something between 1 to 2 times your installed RAM. Some techy types (guilty!) lower it to whatever their usage can tolerate as the machine will (mostly kinda) perform better with a smaller pagefile. Your machine is good & speedy though, so put it at 1.5-to-2 times RAM (eg: 256mb RAM = set to around 450-500mb). Still get msgs? raise it another 100. If you have a multi-volume (volume=partition) system you have the option of assigning your page file to any location(s). DO NOT place any pagefile activity onto any sort of detachable drive: only volumes that reside on permanently affixed disks. As GadgetGuy said, w2k unfortunately will page (write to pagefile) regardless of how much memory you install. In fact, MS recommends (last I checked) ever-expanding page capabilities as your RAM increases. How much you need partly depends on your style of computing. Why? Read on ... if your tummy can stand it. What is paging? Everytime you open an app the OS *gives* a portion of your RAM to that app for it's own exclusively use. If you're the sort who launches a kazillion apps (guilty again!) and leaves them all open as you compute then the OS runs out of RAM, decides (for you) which of the processes least likely to need RAM anytime soon, dumps that app's memory data onto the hard drive ("pages" the data), and gives the newly available RAM to the app you just launched - or whatever it was that happened to demand more RAM that didn't exist. Paging activity is fairly constant, horridly slow, AND everything that gets paged must get unpaged - which is why some people with nothing better to do (guilty again!) spend alot of time trying to locate the pagefile where the data can most rapidly be written & read. In a multi-drive environment that's on the outer edge of the fastest drive on the opposite channel from the system files. (On most PCs IDE has two channels and .... oh nevermind!). In other words just make it bigger - but do make sure none is assigned to a re-movable drive. OKbye!

Hehe, Thanks compadres, Yes Jpers I usually have a kzallion different apps running, in my brain and on my 'putr :-) I'm pretty sure I a have 256 ddr stick, it was at 374, so i put it at 500...i'll give that a shot, btw jpers, I appreciate the detailed info you post. I am fairly new to computers, but am always learning something new...but heck, that's what makes them so fun(and frustrating).

How do you follow the instructions that the computer gives you (Win 2K) to right-click my computer..., if the computer continually reboots after I click OK. I cloned the hard drive, both seem to be 3 gig (only 1 gig is used), but the new drive gives the "no paging file or...to small warninh), and there is no "last good" boot. The old hard drive works fine. 300 MHz pentium with 96 meg ram. If I increase the "paging file" on the original HD extremely high, the reclone it (drive image), then replace the first drive with the 2nd, will that work?