Subject: Virtual Memory size.
Posted: 18 September 2013 at 5:11pm
The problem is that terms like "virtual memory" and "virtual size" have multiple meanings in common use. The same term may have more than one meaning and different terms may refer to the same thing. Microsoft has set a poor example in this but is not alone.
In XP System Information utility "Total Virtual Memory" refers to the process private virtual address space. Unless a specific boot setting has been made this will always be 2 GB (for a 32 bit OS), totally independent of RAM size. "Available Virtual Memory" refers to the portion of the address space that is available. Since each process has it's own address space this refers to that of the utility itself with no system significance. This causes more confusion than anything else.
In Server 2008 "Virtual Memory: Max size" refers to the commit limit which will be the sum of RAM size (minus a small overhead) and pagefile size.
The meanings in XP and Server 2008 are completely different.
Don't expect that other utilities from Microsoft and other sources will use the terms the same way. They won't.
