Prevent the operating system from terminating applications due to insufficient memory.
Prevent the operating system from terminating applications due to insufficient memory.
I turned off my pagefile because it wasn’t doing anything useful. As soon as my PC reached 4.0GB of RAM, Windows showed the 'Close programs and save now' alert and ended the program I was using—FALLOUT FREAKING 4. What a surprise! With only half of my 8GB being used, Windows shouldn’t be warning me about low RAM. After re-enabling it, the issue disappeared but remained bothersome. Even on my server with 16GB of RAM, this happens. How can I stop Windows from closing things like this? My Chromebook doesn’t do this on Windows 10 and has just 2GB of RAM. I’m trying to stay calm but it’s really frustrating.
Start with superuser. Proceed at your own risk. Launch the registry editor by clicking the Windows icon, typing “regedit” and pressing Enter. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WDI\Export the folders listed as your backup. Assign ownership of each folder mentioned in step 3. Right-click the folder, select permissions, click Advanced, set owner to your user, then confirm by clicking OK and granting full control to your group. Remove the folders from step 3. Restart your system. Warning: Memory limits will become critical; once it runs out, programs may stop functioning unpredictably. I find this consequence just as bothersome as intrusive pop-ups. If you regularly strain your machine’s memory, reconsider disabling low-memory alerts. You can always recover the three folders from the backup, and Windows Vista will kindly remind you again. Note: This method also works for Windows 7.
I experienced low memory alerts recently on a mass spectrometer at work. A background Windows process began leaking memory, prompting it to shut down the instrument. To fix this, I replaced the PC with a newer model featuring more RAM. Although a registry workaround existed, it wasn’t suitable for a critical system, and the time needed to address the memory issue wasn’t justified.