Why Windows runs out of memory and how to solve it easily in 5 steps

Windows is an impressive piece of software with dozens of millions of lines of code but it’s not perfect, especially after installing dozens of programs for your work. Sometimes it runs out of mermory, aparently for no reason, but we are going to solve that.

1. Check the Windows update, especially in Windows 8

After leaving the computer ON for several days, the updates are not fully installed because Windows needs to reboot the computer to finish the update install. If you don’t reboot the system for several days or weeks, chances are memory will be a problem. Open the task window. If memory is above 85% with almost no applications running, Windows has software to install. The best way to solve this problem is to run Windows Update and install everything there, even the optional updates. It will take some time, depending on the computer speed and the size of the updates, but after a few minutes Windows is likely to ask to reboot the computer. Save all your work, close the applications and reboot the computer normally. Windows is going to work on the updates before rebooting and after rebooting. When Windows loads again, the memory problem is likely to be solved.

2. Remove all the programs you don’t need or replace them by online versions

Most programs we install in the computer we don’t use anymore. I am talking about all those cool freeware from Softpedia or Cnet. The problem is we don’t use them anymore and they are using resources such as second plan running resources like RAM and hard disk usage. Leave on your computer only the programs you must use for your work on a daily basis. All the rest, chances are you don’t need or there is the online solution that does almost the same thing without having to install a thing. The best way to remove the programs is to use Ccleaner that will remove them program and also clean the hard disk files such a cache and temporary files. It’s not unusual to double the computer speed after this step because RAM is very important to computer speed, sometimes even more than the processor.

3. Reduce the cache for programs and the browser

Many years ago, computers were slow, the internet was even slower than you can imagine, and cache made things a little faster by storing the files in the RAM for future usage. Now the cache is almost useless. Windows does have cache it needs for some key files and applications but most programs do also have cache they don’t need to have, especially the browser which is the application you probably use the most. Internet cache these days is totally useless with fiber internet. You can use applications to reduce the cache. In case you open and close the browser several times a day, just empty the cache and the temporary files after each use. The browser and the entire computer will speed up.

What Windows 10 Should Have

Windows 10 is said by Microsoft to be the best Windows yet. Windows 8 compared with Windows 7 might be a bit faster, but the lack of the start menu made people very angry because they can't find what they want really fast. The new search in Windows 8 is slower, lags too much, takes a lot of time to find what you want and there's not the possibility to open the search results on a new window to continue to search or just refine the query. No wonder Windows 8 has the worst market share ever.

Windows 10 promises to change that. It introduced a whole new start button and it seems that now the start button is the most important feature of Windows. It's the window to everything even to the cloud, with the search feature. I hope that Microsoft makes cloud search easier than before so we don't have to open the folder or the browser to quickly find a file we need.

As for the speed there are no tests yet to see if it's faster than Windows 8 and 8.1 but I hope it is. The cloud needs more speed especially in terms of response time. Cloud services still take a lot of time to respond and in many cases they crash and we have to reboot the browser.

Another thing that Windows 10 could come with is automatic cleaner for Windows, browser and applications. We have to rely on third party software. That's OK because Ccleaner does a great job but it's not a native application. Windows always writes thousands of files it won't need again. After all these years Microsoft still does not have a complete cleaning tool.

Now that we are connected all the time everywhere, Windows needs to be more secure than ever. There are yet no tests because the new version is not yet shipped. Only when people use it we will see if security has been improved, especially in terms of intrusions blocked.

Another important feature I read is that Windows 10 is probably the last Windows version and from now on it will be fully updated with Windows update so we have the best version all the time, just like cloud applications. I hope this will become a reality because installing everything again takes a lot of time and it's costly in terms of time spend upgrading the entire system.

Let's just wait until Windows 10 is released!