Freeing Up Your Computer's Memory

Most of us have gotten those error messages at one time or another. "There is not enough memory available to run this program. Quit one or more programs, and then try again." After a few years, your computer just doesn't run like it did when it was right out of the box. Over time it has gotten a little sluggish and seems to bog down with the simplest task and if you're a task master when it comes to your computer use, it won't take long for your computer to simply run out of memory.

There are several ways you can free up computer memory, such as disabling unnecessary applications and services that run in the background. Open the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and under Processes, and here you can view what is running and using up all your memory resources.

You won't be able to permanently shut down any processes from the Task Manager. You can find the services by going to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services. Here you will find a long list of services, some will be running and some stopped. You can look up each process via your favorite search engine to find out if it is necessary. This can vary from system to system or user depending on what you are using your computer for. Obviously a computer used for office applications will require a number of different processes than that of a computer used as a gaming machine. But you can definitely free up a lot of memory on your computer if you disable all those processes you don't need.

Also, if your computer memory is overburdened with too many programs loading at startup, its performance will definitely lag. One of the easiest and most effective ways to speed up your system is to stop unnecessary programs from loading into the memory when you start your computer. Head on over to Start/Run icon and type in msconfig. This will bring up the System Configuration Utility. Click on the Startup tab and here you will find all the programs that load when you start up your system. Uncheck any that you do not need. It will definitely lighten the load on your PC memory and you can always recheck an application should you discover you need it later to complete an application.

If you have been using your computer for awhile, there are probably a lot of bits and pieces of leftover useless files, adware and spyware and possibly a virus or two. Don't be shocked, even the most innocent computer can pick up junk from the Internet and while a lot of it will not do serious damage to your computer, it can definitely wreck havoc with your system memory and cause it to slow down. Its time to run your virus scanner and spyware program and clean out all the trash. You should perform a scan at least once a month. Also, running the Disk Defragmenter at least once a week will help performance because your system will not have to spend so much time looking all over for bits and pieces of a program it needs. The Disk Cleanup option on Windows will give you the option to remove all of the unnecessary temporary Internet files from your computer.

While it may make sense to simply add more memory to your computer, there are times when that might not be an option or just not in the budget at the moment. So, the next best thing you can do is to keep your computer tuned and in top running condition and the bottom line is that a lean machine is going to free up a lot of memory and run faster and smoother.