What is the difference bet. Physical memory and virtual memory. I have a total physical memory of 256MB and available is 29.70 MB while virtual is 2.00GB and available 1.96MB. Does this mean that I do not have enough space that's why I'm having slow startup?

Physical memory is ram - small sticks that you insert directly into the motherboard. The system runs from this and the more the better.

If you were to use up all the physical memory the computer could not open any new programs and it would freeze. Therefore when the physical memory starts getting full, anything that has not been used for a while is moved to your hard disk drive (where all your documents are stored whilst the computer is off). This allows the physical memory to be available for new programs and data.

Put basically the virtual memory is like an overflow area on your hard disk for when the physical memory gets full.

Hope this helps, maybe some others have a better explanation

Virtual memory used to be called a swap file. As Stu said its kind of any overflow area so when your physcial RAM is filled, your computer will swap out stuff stored in physcial memory but not used for a while to space on your hard drive. And then fill that space with info that is currently being used. Virtual memory does operate more lowly then physical RAM, so if you are constantly swapping from Virtual Memory it can slow things down.

At the time you took those readings if it truly showed 1.96MB of virtual memory available then you are running too much. It would really help to get more RAM. Also you should check to see what's loading as advised in the other thread. You probably are loading way more than you need.

Hi,
256 MB means RAM, which is the memory used in background running programs, or memory used while you have many windows open at the same time.
Virtual Memory is the amount of space that you let windows use on your hard drive, to swap files back and forth, while open programs, running programs.
If you have let windows set your Virtual Memory for you, then it's using the entire hard drive for this "swap" file space... and it WILL slow down the computer somewhat. The computer will be running all over the hard drive, looking for files!

Navigate to Control Panel > System > Performance > Virtual Memory and choose "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings".

Windows will give you a pop-up saying "Don't do this", but do it anyway, click on YES or OK.
Specify the same amount of space for minimum and maximum swap file size. Rule of thumb is twice the amount of RAM you have. For Example: If you have 256 MB RAM, then type in 512 for both the Min. and Max. numbers.

Then, re-boot the computer.

Best wishes,
fredg

Fred,
She has XP, the instructions you gave her are not valid for XP. When are you going to learn to make sure of your answers before you give people the wrong information??

Scott<>