I am trying to do simple operations (multiplication, division, cut, copy, paste, insert columns, etc.) in a large database in excel 2007 (500,000 rows x 60 columns). However, my XP machine (1gb) gives an out of memory error - I have stopped all unnecessary programs but this message keeps appearing.

Is there any way to increase the memory assigned to this program?
Thanks.

Even if 1GB wasn't enough Windows would simply revert to the hard drive swap file so I'm not sure why you are getting that unless Excel only wants to do the computations in RAM (in that case add another GB). I think that you've outgrown Excel for that database and it's time to convert it to a real relational database program.

Either put more RAM into your system or move the data to a real database app like Access.