i also have issues on my computer running winME which i feel would be easily corrected by compressing my hard drive... you say not to compress your hard drive- but may i ask WHY?? my system resources shows that a VERY large portion of my RAM is being used, but i have just minimal programs running... is there a way to compress just some files on my hard drive so that the space is adequate to run smoothly without having to add RAM?? i am currently running with 160 MB of RAM-- this should be enough to run most programs-- theres nothing special on here!!

I agree, if you can compress, you won't lose much speed and I used to have to do that. Before that though, try using MicroTrends free online virus scan. Often, a sudden loss of space is due to a virus. Also, use MSCONFIG to stop startups on all the crap like Realnetwork and everything else that autoboots. Its also easy to do this if you use SPYBOT (if you don't use it, GET IT) and use the advanced features via the start menu (DESKTOP is only SIMPLE FEATURES, took me a while to find that out.) and use the Startup feature.

System resources and RAM are entirely different things. Adding RAM will not increase available system resources. How low are your system resources and what are the symptoms of the problem(s) you are experiencing? It is normal for system resources to gradually fall during the course of the day (win9X), but you can almost always increase available resources by controlling startup programs. The only thing that will restore system resources to the maximum amount your system is capable of is to reboot.

Oh and low hard disk space has nothing to do with resources or RAM. You will reduce performance if you compress your disk(s).

Leroi is right on the money on that one. Your RAM is Random Access Memory which is the memory chips in your mother board, which have absolutely nothing to do with your hard drive. I can assure you that if you compress your hard drive, because you are having problems with RAM, you are just adding to the problem, as now the hard drive will also run slower, not to mention the RAM problem. If your running 160mb of actual RAM, you need to do some system bios and Windows configuration checking, because it should run fine. Most systems that were out at the time Windows ME was released only ran about 64mb or RAM, if your has 160mb, it should fly. The last system I had ran 48mb of RAM, with Windows ME installed and it ran ok. Read the info on the site below. http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/memory/index.shtml Please use the "Alert Me" button in the top right hand corner of this post if I can assist you further. Wesley Johnson

I had the same problem and it was driving me nuts. I have a pretty good system yet when I investigated it was saying that I was using about 92% of my system resources before I even opened a program. Turns out a lot of little programs had put themselves in the startup so basically everything possible was waiting to be ready for me - NOT necessary!What I ended up doing was going into startup and turning basically everything I could think of off and now only about 5 or 6 things load in at startup. My system now flys again and I can run as many programs concurrently as I want (and I do alot of graphic work so have some hog programs and files). Good luck.