Can applications use all of the memory in Windows 8?
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Barleyman
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Published on 2012-11-05T16:12:16Z
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2012/11/05
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Windows 7 (and Windows Vista) have a built-in limit of not being able to use the last 25% of RAM. You will get a low memory warning when you get close to the limit. Even if you disable that warning, applications will run out of memory and crash since the OS will refuse to allocate memory from that last 25%.
That was fine when Vista was designed, when machines had 1 GB of total memory, but is pretty daft for today's 8 GB machines. Yes, the system will run cache, etc. on that extra 2 GB, but running out of memory when you have "merely" 2 GB left....
NB: this has nothing to do with the page file. If you limit the page file to a sensible size like 2 GB, you will still see this behavior. The system will cram the page file to the last byte while refusing to touch that 1/4th of the RAM.
Does Windows 8 change this behavior? Is there now some fixed minimum free RAM requirement, like 512 MB, or is it still 25%? Can you actually adjust the low memory limit?
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