Windows says not enough memory, what I do?

Contents

This instruction discusses what to do if you receive a Windows message when you start any program 10, Windows 7 u 8 (u 8.1) that the system does not have enough virtual or simple memory and "To free up memory for programs to run properly, save the files and then close or restart all open programs ".

I will try to pay attention to all the possible variants of this error and also tell you how to fix it. In case the option of insufficient hard disk space is not clearly relevant to your situation, it is probably a disabled swap file or too small, more about this, as well as video instructions are available here: Windows swap file 7, 8 and Windows 10.

About what type of memory is not enough.

When you view a message in Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10 which says there is not enough memory, mainly refers to RAM and virtual memory, which is essentially a RAM extension, In other words, if the system is low on RAM, use the windows swap file or virtual memory.

Some novice users mistakenly think that memory is the free space on a computer's hard drive and are puzzled by the following:: There are many free gigabytes on the hard disk, But the system complains of lack of memory.

Causes that generate the error

To correct this error, You must first find out the cause. Then, Some possible variants are shown:

  • You've opened a lot of things, what has caused your PC to not have enough memory – I'm not going to talk about how to fix this situation., since it is quite clear: Close what you don't need.
  • You really don't have enough RAM (2 GB or less. For some resource-intensive tasks, It is feasible that 4 GB of RAM may not be enough).
  • Your hard drive is full, so there is not enough space left for virtual memory when the swap file size is automatically adjusted.
  • Has adjusted (or off) the size of the paging file on its own (or with an optimization program) and has proved insufficient for programs to function properly.
  • Some individual program, malicious or not, is causing a memory loss (gradually starts using all available memory).
  • Problems with the program itself, that cause an error of “Out of memory” O “Out of virtual memory”.

If I'm not mistaken, The five options described are the most common causes of the error.

How to fix out of memory errors in Windows 7, 8 Y 8.1

Now, in order, How to fix the error in each of the cases listed.

Not enough RAM.

If your computer has a small amount of RAM, it makes sense to consider buying additional RAM modules. Memory is not expensive at this time. Besides, If you have a very old computer (and old-style memory) and plans to buy a new one soon, An upgrade may not be warranted; it is easier to temporarily put up with the fact that not all programs are running. .

In the post How to increase RAM in a laptop, I wrote how to find out on your own what memory you need and do the upgrade; In general, everything described there is also applicable to a desktop PC.

Not enough hard disk space.

Even though today's hard drive volumes are impressive, It is not uncommon to see a user have 1 gigabyte more or less free of one terabyte; This kind of thing doesn't just cause a “Out of memory”, it also causes a serious slowdown throughout the operation. You must not allow this to happen.

I've written about disk cleanup in several posts:

Good, The main tip is not to store a lot of movies and other media that you won't hear or watch., Games you won't play anymore and things like that.

Setting up a Windows swap file caused an error

If you have configured the Windows swap file settings yourself, There is a chance that these changes caused the error to appear. You may not even have done it manually, but you have some program designed to take full advantage of the performance of windows. Then, you may need to increment or enable the swap file (if it was disabled). some older programs do not start at all with virtual memory turned off and always report that it is subtracted.

In all these cases, I suggest you read a post that describes in detail how and what to do: How to correctly configure the Windows swap file.

Memory leak or what to do if an individual program takes up all the free RAM

It happens that some individual procedure or program begins to use RAM intensively; this may be caused by an error in the program itself, to the malicious nature of their actions or to some error.

To establish whether no such procedure exists, you can use Task Manager. To run it on Windows 7, presione Ctrl + Alt + Delete and select Task Manager from the menu, and in Windows 8 Y 8.1, presione Win (the button with the logo) + X and select "Task Manager".

In Windows Task Manager 7, open the tab “Processes” and sort by column “Memory” (You must click on the column name). For Windows 8.1 Y 8, use the tab “Details”, which provides a visual representation of all the processes running on your computer. You can also sort them by the amount of RAM and virtual memory used.

If you see that any program or procedure is using a large amount of RAM (large are hundreds of megabytes, assuming it's not a photo or video editor or something that consumes a lot of resources), It is important to investigate why this happens.

If it's the right program.increased memory usage may be due to normal application operation, such as automatic updates, to the operations for which the program is intended or to errors in the program. If you find that a program uses a strangely high amount of resources all the time, Try to reinstall it and, If that doesn't help, Search the web for a specific description of the problem.

If it is an unknown procedure.: It is probably something malicious and it is important to highlight checking the computer for viruses, There is also the opportunity that it is a failure of some system procedure. I recommend that you search the web for the name of this procedure to find out what it is and what to do about it.; You are probably not the only user who had this problem.

In conclusion.

At the same time of the described variants, there is one more: The error is generated by exactly one instance of the program that is trying to run. It makes sense to try downloading it from another source or reading the official support forums for that software., There you can also find solutions to low memory problems.

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