Windows 7 64 bit not releasing memory

I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with 8GB of memory. On two occasions, the memory
has become so low that I have had to reboot. If I notice that I am getting
low on memory, I quit programs and the memory that those programs were using
are not released back to be reused. Has anyone else seen this?

Thanks,

Jes


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4645 (20091128) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

If a program is not coded correctly it may well hold the memory after the
application is closed. Look to the program manufacturer for any updates or
fixes.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience & Security


"jes lookn" <sorry.no@email.com> wrote in message
news:OQCtBbFcKHA.2596@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with 8GB of memory. On two occasions, the
>memory has become so low that I have had to reboot. If I notice that I am
>getting low on memory, I quit programs and the memory that those programs
>were using are not released back to be reused. Has anyone else seen this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jes
>
> __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
> signature database 4645 (20091128) __________
>
> The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
>
> http://www.eset.com
>
>
>

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:15:22 -0500, "jes lookn" <sorry.no@email.com>
wrote:

>I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with 8GB of memory. On two occasions, the memory
>has become so low that I have had to reboot. If I notice that I am getting
>low on memory, I quit programs and the memory that those programs were using
>are not released back to be reused. Has anyone else seen this?

According to Wikipedia 64 bit can support up to (I think) 67.3 million
Terabytes of RAM. I was disappointed to discover that the spec for my
new computer is a bit lower than that.

In message <ejbsAKGcKHA.2160@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl> "Richard Urban"
<richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> was claimed to have wrote:

>If a program is not coded correctly it may well hold the memory after the
>application is closed. Look to the program manufacturer for any updates or
>fixes.

How would a program do that?

With the exception of kernel mode drivers, rootkits and similar,
Windows' memory model simply doesn't allow memory to be used unless it's
owned by a process (or the kernel itself)

However, that doesn't mean memory is marked as "free" once it's
released, free memory is wasted memory, if the data in memory is
potentially reusable Windows keeps it in RAM, releasing it only as
memory is needed by other applications.

In message <OQCtBbFcKHA.2596@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl> "jes lookn"
<sorry.no@email.com> was claimed to have wrote:

>I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with 8GB of memory. On two occasions, the memory
>has become so low that I have had to reboot. If I notice that I am getting
>low on memory, I quit programs and the memory that those programs were using
>are not released back to be reused. Has anyone else seen this?

Is Windows paging data out to disk? If not, then this is fairly normal.
Start Resource Monitor (from the button in Task Manager) and take a look
at the "Memory" tab, how much memory is in "Standby" or "Free"?

You shouldn't normally see much memory in "Free" state, this isn't a
problem, "Standby" memory is as good as free if an application needs it,
but if not, it potentially boosts performance if you happen to re-do
whatever task used said memory previously. In other words, it's
basically cache, although it's actually only a subset of the cache.

By not terminating correctly any memory used will stay locked and will not
be released to the cache.

I have seen in Vista where I have has 4 instances of Firefox shown in task
manager. I would shut down FF and start it up again an hour later and
another instance would start. NO! I didn't have multiple windows open. When
I saw the 4 instances all instances of FF were terminated.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience & Security


"Dave Warren" <dave-usenet@djwcomputers.com> wrote in message
news:3h84h5tleplsb3lmcp19u1r3ba4lsunvsd@4ax.com...
> In message <ejbsAKGcKHA.2160@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl> "Richard Urban"
> <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> was claimed to have wrote:
>
>>If a program is not coded correctly it may well hold the memory after the
>>application is closed. Look to the program manufacturer for any updates or
>>fixes.
>
> How would a program do that?
>
> With the exception of kernel mode drivers, rootkits and similar,
> Windows' memory model simply doesn't allow memory to be used unless it's
> owned by a process (or the kernel itself)
>
> However, that doesn't mean memory is marked as "free" once it's
> released, free memory is wasted memory, if the data in memory is
> potentially reusable Windows keeps it in RAM, releasing it only as
> memory is needed by other applications.

In message <#ybAwIPcKHA.4884@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl> "Richard Urban"
<richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> was claimed to have wrote:

>By not terminating correctly any memory used will stay locked and will not
>be released to the cache.
>
>I have seen in Vista where I have has 4 instances of Firefox shown in task
>manager. I would shut down FF and start it up again an hour later and
>another instance would start. NO! I didn't have multiple windows open. When
>I saw the 4 instances all instances of FF were terminated.

In that case, the application didn't actually close which is a bit of a
different scenario.

However, this particular example seems fairly unlikely. Although
Firefox is known to leave an orphan process running if the shutdown
fails, new instances of Firefox won't start when a previous instance is
still running, so you won't actually see multiple Firefox.exe processes
running unless you're running Firefox in Windows' compatibility mode (or
under different user/security/etc contexts)