Insufficient memory can slow down your system's overall performance, keep applications from running properly, or worse, cause your system to lock up, wiping out any unsaved work or data.

The obvious way to avoid memory problems is to install more RAM (especially if you're running Windows 9x on 16MB RAM or less). But before you do that, make the most of your computer's existing memory. Don't worry, it's not as geeky as it sounds: Windows 9x provides several tools to help you track down and fix memory-related problems, and to optimise your current memory settings for maximum performance.

Get your meter running

If you suspect that your computing tasks overwork your PC's memory capacity, play it safe by keeping a watchful eye on Windows' levels of available resources with the System Resource Meter utility. You'll find it under Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Resource Meter. If you don't see it there, install it from your Windows CD-ROM via Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. Highlight System Tools, click the Details button, and select the box next to System Resource Meter.

You can see the percentage of free resources you have in your system by placing the mouse pointer over the Resource Meter icon in the System Tray or by double-clicking the icon to bring up the Resource Meter dialogue box. If either 'User resources' or 'GDI resources' drops below 25 per cent, you should consider closing unnecessary applications and windows. If any resource drops below 10 per cent, a warning will appear on your screen. At this point, you're flirting with danger; save your work immediately and close running programs, one by one, to free up memory.

Caption: Keep an eye on your system resources with Resource Meter

Keep your eye on the monitor

System Monitor is another powerful diagnostic utility included with Windows that allows you to monitor a slew of performance statistics for your computer. Like the Resource Meter tool, it's either listed on your System Tools menu or can be installed from the Windows CD-ROM.

Select the statistics you want to display from the System Monitor's Edit-Add Item menu. As you open more applications and documents, these statistics will help you figure out how quickly your installed physical RAM fills up, when your swap file starts to reach capacity, and which programs hog the most memory.

For a precise measure of how much RAM a given program requires, add up the numbers for 'Other memory' and 'Swappable memory' and then subtract the amount for 'Disk cache'. Do the calculation while the program is running, and again when it's not running; the difference between the two totals is the amount of RAM used by that program.

Another problem users occasionally encounter is memory "leakage". Some applications refuse to release memory they use for specific tasks (or "threads") even after the jobs have been completed. A corrupt program may keep generating new threads, eating up all your available memory. To figure out whether your machine suffers from a memory leak, keep an eye on the Kernel: Threads statistic in System Monitor. Continually increasing numbers of threads ù especially when your computing activity is at a minimum ù indicate a leak. In most cases, closing and restarting the application releases the trapped memory. If it doesn't, you'll need to close everything and reboot.

Caption: Windows' System Monitor has the tools to show you the
amount of memory your system uses for various purposes