Mem Usage and VM Size in Windows TASKBAR

Windows TASK BAR has lot options that we can use to explore information about the process.

we can view information like Imagename, User name, Mem Usage, VM Size, PID, CPU Time etc.,

The terminology may seem odd, but it’s just developer-speak. ‘Working Set’ is equivalent to ‘Mem Usage’ in the XP Task Manager and it refers to the total amount of physical memory allocated to this process. This sounds straightforward, but keep in mind that processes can share RAM, so some memory pages may be included in the total more than once.

‘VM Size’ in the XP Task Manager, reports memory allocated exclusively to this process, which may therefore be swapped out to your paging file. Some, all or none of that figure may be in the paging file right now, but there’s no way to tell. If you’re simply looking for a memory leak, then the distinction doesn’t really matter. Just look for a figure that increases over time and you’ve found the problem.

Occasionally, a process may eventually clean up after itself, but this may take a very long time. In situations like this, you should take a look for the Peak memory values to highlight the maximum amount of RAM that the process has ever used. This is one situation where the Windows 2000/XP Task Manager may be a better choice for monitoring than Process Explorer.