Cloudeight Windows Tips and Tricks

We all know how important our memory is. If we forget something it's liable to have ramifications. If we forget to buy milk or bread or pretzels it usually means an inconvenient run to some convenience store at 11:30PM to get whatever we forgot at the grocery store and paying a premium price.

Well computers have memory too. Computer have different types of memory. I guess you could say people do too  (good and bad memory?). Oops I'm meandering again. Computer memory comes in two basic flavors: Physical and virtual.

Physical Memory is known as "RAM" (Random Access Memory). When you open a program the program is loaded into your computer's RAM or Physical Memory.  When your computer does not have enough RAM or Physical Memory to run the program you want to open, Windows creates "Virtual Memory".

Virtual Memory is extra memory that Windows carves out of any free hard drive space you have available. This gets you by so you can run the program you want to run -but, and this is a big BUT - Virtual Memory is very slow compared to Physical Memory (RAM). So when you're out of RAM you can still run more programs but they have to be loaded into Virtual Memory (specially allocated hard drive space). Because hard drives are much slower than RAM this means your programs will open slower. And the more Virtual Memory that Windows is forced to use the slower your computer runs. Well, this is a very simplified description but it should give you and idea of why you don't want to be in a Virtual Memory situation very often.

What can you to do keep this from happening? The first thing is: Install more RAM. For Windows XP users we strongly recommend at least 512 MB of RAM. For Vista users we recommend at least 2 GB of RAM.  RAM is relatively cheap and so easy to install that virtually (no pun intended) anyone can do it. If you buy your RAM from Crucial it comes with step-by-step instructions with pictures to guide you. It is really easy to do. And, adding RAM is the single most important thing you can do to make your computer run faster. As soon as you add more RAM you're computer will run faster.

Two Caveats: Every computer has a maximum RAM capacity. Check your computer manual - or check the manufacturer's Web site - to see what your computer maximum RAM capacity is. Windows XP and Windows Vista (32-bit versions- which are the versions most of us use) can only use so much RAM. Windows XP's maximum is about 2 GB and Windows Vista's is about 3 GB.

When you think of Physical Memory - think "RAM". When you think of Virtual Memory think of hard drive space being used as memory. Virtual Memory is slower than Physical Memory (RAM). So always make sure you have enough RAM and stay out of those Virtual Memory situations where your computer is carving out memory from your hard drive.