Can I force Vista to reserve some free memory?

I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.


--
craigr

--->
> I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
> (I don't really speak "computer" very well)
>
> I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
> when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
> enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
> of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.
>
> Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
> available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
> free so that my software will start?
>
> Thanks.
>
>

Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
which) but that may not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that video
was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes. On
VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found myself
unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox to be
my favorite amongst the few I have tried.

Regards
Chris Saunders

"Questor" <Questor@minimoe.com> wrote in message
news:O5wRCa4TKHA.4484@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> --->
>> I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM. (I
>> don't really speak "computer" very well)
>>
>> I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
>> when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
>> enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
>> of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.
>>
>> Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
>> available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
>> free so that my software will start?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>
> Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
> Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
> installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying around
> on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having another
> machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM, ports, and such
> to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget which) but that may
> not be important depending on your software.
>
> I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
> flavors of Windows and Linux.
>
> Questor

Absolutely, Chris. There are several other out there too. I only
mentioned MS VPC as a 'generic' answer to the OP. Your solution is
probably a better one if the old application needs more video RAM.
MSVPC doesn't support DirectX or OpenGL either (I think). Does VirtualBox?

Questor

--->
> There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that
> video was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes.
> On VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found
> myself unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
> VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox
> to be my favorite amongst the few I have tried.
>
> Regards
> Chris Saunders
>
> "Questor" <Questor@minimoe.com> wrote in message
> news:O5wRCa4TKHA.4484@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> --->
>>> I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
>>> (I don't really speak "computer" very well)
>>>
>>> I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
>>> when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
>>> enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
>>> of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.
>>>
>>> Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
>>> available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
>>> free so that my software will start?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
>> Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
>> installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
>> around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
>> another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
>> ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
>> which) but that may not be important depending on your software.
>>
>> I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
>> flavors of Windows and Linux.
>>
>> Questor
>

you might try running in in compatibility mode for xp.
right click the exe file, select properties and then the compatibility tab and select xp.

mikeyhsd@lamparty.net



"craigr" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message news:7765e049efa9ac34c1b5de0c285a3ee8@nntp-gateway.com...

I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.


--
craigr

The compatibility mode fix worked fine. I'm sure the others would too,
but I'm not very computer savvy so I'll go for the easy fix.

Thanks everyone!


--
craigr

I am not certain about this. For audio settings VirtualBox does have a
setting that involves DirectSound. I recently reinstalled Vista and haven't
yet reinstalled VirtualBox so I can't do any checking for you. The original
poster found a solution to the problem that does seem much simpler.

Regards
Chris Saunders

"Questor" <Questor@minimoe.com> wrote in message
news:OVxzF76TKHA.5584@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Absolutely, Chris. There are several other out there too. I only
> mentioned MS VPC as a 'generic' answer to the OP. Your solution is
> probably a better one if the old application needs more video RAM. MSVPC
> doesn't support DirectX or OpenGL either (I think). Does VirtualBox?
>
> Questor
>
> --->
>> There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that
>> video was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes. On
>> VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found
>> myself unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
>> VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox to
>> be my favorite amongst the few I have tried.
>>
>> Regards
>> Chris Saunders
>>
>> "Questor" <Questor@minimoe.com> wrote in message
>> news:O5wRCa4TKHA.4484@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> --->
>>>> I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
>>>> (I don't really speak "computer" very well)
>>>>
>>>> I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
>>>> when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
>>>> enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
>>>> of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.
>>>>
>>>> Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
>>>> available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
>>>> free so that my software will start?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
>>> Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
>>> installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
>>> around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
>>> another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
>>> ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
>>> which) but that may not be important depending on your software.
>>>
>>> I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
>>> flavors of Windows and Linux.
>>>
>>> Questor
>>

I agree. The simpler, the better.

Questor

--->
> I am not certain about this. For audio settings VirtualBox does have a
> setting that involves DirectSound. I recently reinstalled Vista and
> haven't yet reinstalled VirtualBox so I can't do any checking for you.
> The original poster found a solution to the problem that does seem much
> simpler.
>
> Regards
> Chris Saunders
>
> "Questor" <Questor@minimoe.com> wrote in message
> news:OVxzF76TKHA.5584@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Absolutely, Chris. There are several other out there too. I only
>> mentioned MS VPC as a 'generic' answer to the OP. Your solution is
>> probably a better one if the old application needs more video RAM.
>> MSVPC doesn't support DirectX or OpenGL either (I think). Does
>> VirtualBox?
>>
>> Questor
>>
>> --->
>>> There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that
>>> video was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8
>>> megabytes. On VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video
>>> memory. I have found myself unable to run Solaris on Microsoft
>>> Virtual PC but it runs fine on VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate
>>> 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox to be my favorite amongst the few I
>>> have tried.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Chris Saunders
>>>
>>> "Questor" <Questor@minimoe.com> wrote in message
>>> news:O5wRCa4TKHA.4484@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>>> --->
>>>>> I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2
>>>>> SDRAM. (I don't really speak "computer" very well)
>>>>>
>>>>> I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
>>>>> when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I
>>>>> have
>>>>> enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have
>>>>> -130MB
>>>>> of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
>>>>> available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
>>>>> free so that my software will start?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
>>>> Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
>>>> installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
>>>> around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
>>>> another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
>>>> ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I
>>>> forget which) but that may not be important depending on your software.
>>>>
>>>> I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running
>>>> various flavors of Windows and Linux.
>>>>
>>>> Questor
>>>
>