Free Memory v.7.0 Final:

A word on Window's memory management

Microsoft's Windows Operating Systems Windows 9x and Windows NT utilize a sophisticated memory management process, which makes it possible for applications to use more RAM than your PC really has. This memory management process enables the user to run many programs at the same time. Currently unused areas of RAM are swapped out to the hard disk, allowing any running applications access to all of the resources they need.

In addition, the Operating System also reserves parts of the hard disk as cache inside RAM by figuring out which files the user needs and holding them (or parts of them) in RAM. This really speeds up operation as accessing the hard disk takes a great deal longer than accessing RAM.

What's going wrong

There are four things that go wrong and make the memory management fail.

Program Errors

Many applications today have programming errors. The Operating System itself has programming errors. Many people think that it is impossible to make programs without errors. Most errors are undetectable. Although they generally have little or no effect on the application's usability, and a user never sees them, one unseen error can result in applications leaving various amounts of memory allocated, even after the application has itself been terminated. RAM is a valuable resource, and the loss of this resource results in diminished performance but if Windows is unable to detect these errors the RAM remains allocated and unavailable for use where it is needed.

Large Libraries

Many programs use large libraries. This makes it easy for companies to do the cool programs as they don't have to invent the wheel again anytime they want to program a program. The program Free Memory uses a library, too. Some of these libraries are very large and consume a notable amount of memory. All OLE libraries fall into this category. Unfortunately the memory is used, even if the program doesn't really need it.

File Caching

As stated above, file caching is a critical aspect of memory management. Without it the PC would be extremely slow. However Windows Operating Systems are not smart enough to really detect which files are necessary to hold in RAM and which are not. If a file is in RAM, because an application has needed it, Windows holds the file in RAM for a while, even if it doesn't need it any more. Especially after large copy operations, large parts of RAM are full with cached files, even if most of the files will not be accessed for the next 2 days. Assume a PC has 32MB of RAM and about 20MB are used to cache files from the hard disk. With Windows9x the user has a possibility to control the file cache size.

Background Programs

Windows is capable to run the many programs at the same time. This is great for the user. This also enables the existence of some tools that work constantly in the background and provide useful services. Free Memory is one of these tools. However there are programs that provide unnecessary background services. These tools just consume RAM and provide no service. It is important to notice that Free Memory enlarge the volume of the free operating memory. One example for an unnecessary background program is ”Microsoft Office Fast Start”. This program just loads a lot of libraries and does really nothing. This could make the applications from Microsoft Office load a bit faster, because the libraries are already in RAM, but the effect is nullified because the libraries are swapped out to disk.

What to do

The easiest thing one can do to solve the problems stated above is to run a large application. This will allocate a lot of RAM and cause all the unused parts of RAM to be written to the swap file. All unused parts of RAM are now on the hard disk and are not wasting a valuable resource. However the large application is now blocking all the RAM and closing the application will not guarantee that the space will be recovered.

Price: $9.99

Free Download Trial Version 1199 kb.