"your computer is low on memory, please close X program"

So then. All  'out of memory errors'  are a result of Windows not using more than 80% of RAM.

But with a Page File you are spared the error message when going over 80% RAM usage.

Nothing to do with software that us the Page File at all, yes ?

Which explains why with 8GB of RAM, and never having used more than about 52% of that,

I will never see this error if I were to disable the Page File, yes ?     

Well, BossDweebe, You are incorrect again in this assumption.  You apparently didn't go back and read much of the whole forum. I will repeat what I found, not only from my own experience but from what I have read of others. 

1. The guy you were referring to may not have had a Page file but others including myself have it enabled. So this is in NO way a protection against 'Out of Memory' warnings.
2. With my Page File I have a total of 12GB of VM and in only having open Chrome with a few dozen tabs open, couple Notepads, and maybe Windows Explorer, I have gotten the 'Out of Memory' warnings. With that , there is no way on earth I depleted 12GB

So try not to assuming things. Forum thread do't need dozens of pages of assumptions.

Ok, well I will have to at least thank BossDweebe for one thing. His MORE link pointed me to an Alex .... somebody, and upon following links from his article to another article and many links deep to half a dozen articles I came across what appears to look like, or at least looks promising, to be a possible solution or root cause of this issue. It goes to the heart of memory management and only something that engineer and OS development teams talk about. This may also explain why there is so much controversy over disabling Superfetch ad its predecessor, Prefetch on XP. Many people writing articles stating that it will do nothing for memory management , nor impact memory usage in a positive way much less get rid of the dreaded 'Out of Memory' warnings that it seams I have seen 100's of people complain about and probably has effected 1000's at some point or another. And then others swear by that fact that disabling Superfetch or its equivalent has fixed the issue. I am going to test out the adjustment which is configurable in the registry****and will post details if it pans out.

 In Reply To Olli Mannisto:

Ooh, someone got up grumpy

well, I re-read the forum rules of conduct.  I decided I should then edit some of my posts to make them more polite, keep the thread on track and constructive and also consolidated and reformatted them. 

It was just late .... or I mean early in the morning and feeling frustrated over this for the past two years of experiencing it with nobody seaming to know of a solution, MS not fixing it and not wanting to deal with someone assuming many thing and wasting everyone's time with superficial nonsense that was not true when they clearly didn't read anything in the thread and was just assuming everything. 

Just about all forums have these unwritten rules:

1. Make sure you have facts or at least factual things to say that can be proven or citations or at least to contribute positively.
2. Don't just chime in and say, "I have the same problem' as nobody want's to read 300 pages of 10,000 people saying that over and over and over again ,"I have the exact same issue".
3. Don't even remotely sound like a troll or you could get called on the carpet for it and/or flamed.
4. Make sure you put forth a best effort to read the whole forum so that you do't repeat others, make erroneous assumptions, put word in other mouth that shouldn't be there, come across an unknowledgeable know-it-all, or any of the pitfalls that almost always befall some well intentioned poster wanting to contribute positively without knowing what the real issues (notice plural as issues tend to evolve in a forum) or what has transpired throughout the process. ie: I have seen forums dozens of pages long where posters ask the same question dozens of times that was already answered dozens of times thus showing they read nothing.

anyone can see from their resource monitor how windows allocates memory and can observe the magic 80% number in action

Where does the resource monitor state that 80% is a magical number or show the number 80 as any percentage? I have never seen it and must assume you spent time roughly calculating some other numbers to arrive at this percentage conclusion.

If you have NO page file, then

Windows will issue low memory warning immediately upon reaching 80% allocated.

Then is my windows broken ? Because I get this every time I reach some magical limit whether its 80% or 75% and I do have a page file. Like I said 12GB total VM

It's stupid but there's is nothing you can do about it

Sure its stupid as with these days of GB's of memory, GB's can't be used. I can't imagine a Windows Server with 64GB or 128GB of RAM having 16GB or 32GB respectively going to waste.

WorKarounds: Get more RAM 

Now its your turn. Are you serious??? Now you are showing that you didn't read the thread. I will repeat again what I did at least 3 and possibly 4 times already. I have increased RAM with no effect or change . I have then lowered the memory footprint of all running processes, with no effect. These things have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it. I have dealt with this long enough trying many things that I would steak my like o this undeniable fact. One possible contributing fact may be that Chrome is a huge memory vortex black whole as some others have mentioned it leaks memory, which would show why I am RIGHT, and amount of RAM doesn't matter. As if this is a fact, Chrome will gobble up any and all RAM eventually, leaking as much as it can no matter how much you have.

Use the Page File 

Oh Lord, There is only one person in this forum that said they were NOT using the Page File and THAT person is NOT experiencing this issue. How much did you read? Or I mean how little of this forum did you read?

Chrome leaks memory like crazy ... 

Well, I have news for you. I had the same issue using Waterfox and Firefox so that is a totally wrong assumption as being the issue as this would imply that we all just stop browsing the internet. There seams to be many programs taht leak memory and I am Sure that Firefox and IE do their share. I personal feel that Waterfox leaks less because of how it is developed but then I am not sure and is more of an assumption.

FYI: Chrome Task Manager which I am very familiar with. It will show you how when I, you, or anyone closes half of their 200 open tabs that the memory footprint of the remaining open Chrome tabs starts climbing in memory consumption. You can watch it happen slow, steady and sure as a bean burrito will eventually give you gas. 

You can try 'the great suspender' 

Got it. Used it. It works marginally and only temporarily as after you suspend, its almost like closing tabs. The remaining open tabs will eventually grow and consume that 'Magical' percentage you talked about.

The only real solution I have found is to keep closing your browser every hour or two no matter what browser you use as I have had this issue with Chrome, FF, WF, and IE. But that is no real solution as it is inconvenient.

I will report back on the other thing I was checking into that looks promising.

Ooh, someone got up grumpy. 

The facts of this issue have not changed between Windows Vista->7->8, specifically the x64 editions. 

Windows does not "want" to use more than 80% of available memory. There's one person who wants to argue this point for the sake of arguing. He doesn't even argue whether or not it's a major issue but if this happens at all. It's inane as anyone can see from their resource monitor how windows allocates memory and can observe the magic 80% number in action. 

If you have NO page file, then

Windows will issue low memory warning immediately upon reaching the 80% threshold. 

If you HAVE page file then

Windows will happily allocate SOME of that remaining 20% of RAM but will start to move it to page file immediately until you're back at max 80% allocated. 

It's stupid but there's nothing you can do about it as Microsoft does not want to cap the buffer/reserver amount in absolute megabytes for some reason. At 8GB machines that's 1.6GB memory doing nothing much, perhaps it'll finally be patched when 16GB becomes commonplace as 3.2GB is fairly obvious overhead. 

Workarounds: Get more RAM. More the better. Yes, you only get 4/5 of it actually used but RAM is cheap and do you think the amount used is being allocated efficiently? Use the page file. Yes it's annoying but it adds some flexibility to the system at least. For HDD pagefile should not exceed more than 3-4GB, your machine will be already rather sluggish at such amount. Allocating 1.5x RAM is old obsolete and completely wrong in 2014. If you have SDD you can have larger pagefile if you want but you'd better buy more RAM instead. 

Chrome leaks memory like crazy, deal with it. You can see the actual amount used by opening url about://memory (which goes to chrome://memory-redirect/). Using adblock makes the memory leak much worse but not using adblock makes life worse. If you want even more nitpicking detail you can check chrome://memory-internals/

There's also chrome task manager available from shift-esc

You can try "the great suspender" extension for chrome. At least for firefox similar extensions which (try to) unload tabs do not work as firefox does not actually release the memory when tab is suspended. But it's worth a shot..

Ah well ! All my theories have been proven incorrect.

I admit to only skimming a most of the post/rants, and it looks like I went into auto-pilot thinking

this was one of the more common Page File threads, as the OP title says "Please close Program X" , so I somehow missed the salient point about only being  able to use 80% (75%) of RAM.

OP also said -

"I am only using 3 out of the 4 GB I have. I refuse to use a page file...

I just crashed my VMware server"

I wonder why he said that.  I just looked at his spec and it says 16GB - oh well, there I go again

not reading carefully enough.

• I have been told that  VMware servers used a lot of memory and required a fair bit of

processing power, but don't have experience with VMware.

So then. All  'out of memory errors'  are a result of Windows not using more than 80% of RAM.

But with a Page File you are spared the error message when going over 80% RAM usage.

Nothing to do with software that us the Page File at all, yes ?

Which explains why with 8GB of RAM, and never having used more than about 52% of that,

I will never see this error if I were to disable the Page File, yes ?     

.

1. Its not Windows that thinks its out of memory. It's the software that uses the Page File. Since everyone still has software that still utilizes the page file then you are implying that EVERYONE should be getting 'Out of Memory' warnings and this should be normal. Do you realize that what you are saying thus far makes absolutely NO coherent or logical sense?

2. If you don't have a software that uses the Page File you won't get an out of memory error.

3. - Some programs that handle very large files such as video and photo editors have to allow for those who don't have massive amounts of RAM so these programs make use of the Page File. In this instance a program may show an out of memory error when it does not detect a Page File

Reply in numerical order:

1. Since everyone still has software that uses the Page File, then you are implying that EVERYONE should be getting 'Out of memory' warnings and that this should be normal. This makes NO coherent or logical sense.
2. Wrong you are. You obviously didn't read much of this thread or any of my recent post today where I pointed out that Windows programs themselves mistakenly believe that THEY are also running out of memory. Its not the software that utilizes the Page File. Its the Memory Controller module of Windows OS itself.
3. Now your trying to say that a person should only get an 'Out of memory' warning if they have their Page File disabled and are using a program that is looking for the Page File and con not find it?

This is also factually **UNTRUE.**This sounds like question that would come from a forum troll.

In this instance a program may show an out of memory error when it does not detect a Page File.