Hello, Having a problem booting the wifes computer. She told me that it just went through the latest microsoft update and needed to be rebooted, (it is setup for auto security updates) so she rebooted it. Now when it boots it will go through what seems to be normal start up and when the desktop sould come up an error message shows "Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file. ect...." Once "OK" is clicked the screen goes black with only the curser showing. The curser can be moved, the hard drive indicator is off. Tried booting in safe mode with the same result, also tried removing one stick of memory,(same result)then swapped the other stick (same). The bios appears OK it will go into setup or boot menu. The system was operating fine up untill this point. I hope someone has a suggestion for this concern. Thank you

Removing or adding memory will not fix this problem. It is normally associated with a poorly written application that has developed a memory leak and is using all the virtual memory. The only way I know of is to stop the application that is causing the problem and then increase the virtual memory which should be a minumum of 1 1/2 times the amount of installed ram. The computer should boot to safemode. You saying it still does the same says that the application is a system app. In this case you may have to remove the drive and slave it to another computer and remove the last update. In reference to 11/05/2008 "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." - George Lucas

That would make sense however I do not know how to "slave it" to another computer. I have another properly working computer, and have some technical knowledge, would you mind "walking me" through this proceedure? In the past I have edited registery keys and removed viruses manually with proper direction. Thank you for the reply.

I'm not sure that there is a way to remove an update by connecting the drive to another system. If Lurkswithin knows a way, that would probably be the first thing to try. If your Dell software has a way to do a 'Repair Install', I would suggest that as a second choice. It might be called a 'Non Destructive Restore'. Be careful, because the normal 'Restore' will restore the machine to the way it came from the factory, and you would lose anything added since then.

Well this is a second hand machine from a business. I do not have the original restore disks. I have also tried to use the windows XP disc to repair it and it will not work either, basically the same senario. If no one else has a suggestion, I will "nuke" the hard drive and do a fresh install, just had a few pictures that were not backed up. Oh well such is life.

Safe mode should be used to use system restore or remove updates or roll back drivers. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

You could physically remove the drive and connect it to another system as a Slave, or to a USB port using an inexpensive cable adapter. Then you could save whatever important files you have.