We all run into this problem quite often. Even if you have a ton of memory on your computer it would still be lacking that last 1 more Gig. That’s always the case. When I upgraded to 3 GB RAM I thought my Vista Ultimate would outperform but to a disappointment. May be I might be having too many applications and too many tabs open on my browsers but I do expect that 3 GB to give me some advantage that I can be happy with. So far, not that much. But with MiniMem I do see a bit of a performance increase on my computer. So I thought may be it would help you in your quest to improve your system performance as well.

What is MiniMem?

Here is a little quote from the developer of MiniMem,

MiniMem runs in the background and can be set up to optimize as many processes as you’d like, using a very intuitive graphical interface. Unlike other memory optimization tools, it gives you full control over what applications you want to optimize, when and how often, as well as the possibility to only optimize memory when required and relevant.

It optimizes memory by removing as many unnecessary memory pages as possible from the selected processes. It does so at regular intervals which can be user-defined as well and every 30s by default, though uses an advanced pooling mechanism to ensure the CPU usage of MiniMem remains low at all times. This then optimizes your applications which can load those pages back whenever they need, and makes your overall system perform much better whenever it is memory limited.

MiniMem runs in the background and is fully non-intrusive. It stays in your tray where you can access its settings at any time and will remember your favorite settings for an optimal ease-of-use.

MiniMem requires .NET Framework 3.5 and so it would run best on Windows Vista. If you want the same memory optimization capabilities on Windows XP you can install .NET Framework 3.5 from here and then install MiniMem from here.

Follow these steps to try and see if MiniMem can help improve your system performance,

Step-1:

Download and install MiniMem.

Step-2:

Launch MiniMem from your “Start >> All Programs”.

Step-3:

Once launched MiniMem will shrink down to an icon on your system tray like below,

And a balloon tip pops open to give you some tips and to make you aware that MiniMem is watching your system’s memory usage.

As you can see on the tooltip you can “double-click” to view options and “right-click” to see the context menu.

Step-4:

Since now MiniMem is running on your computer you have to tell MiniMem the applications that you want MiniMem to optimize its memory footprint. Either “double-click” or “right-click” and click on “Settings” menu option.

Step-5:

MiniMem Settings dialog opens up and you can see all of the active processes on your computer on the right side list box.

Click on the processes (programs) that you want to be optimized on the right side under “All active processes” list box and move it to the “Optimized processes” list box using the “<” button. I would recommend that you choose all the browser programs and any of the programs that you think are a drag on your computer’s memory usage.

Once you’ve selected the processes that needs to be optimized you can click on the “Optimize Now” button at the top.

Or you can leave MiniMem to optimize every couple of seconds. Have a check mark in front of “Do not optimize the foreground process” and “Do not optimize if overall RAM available is >” options. Click the OK button to let MiniMem do its job.

I’ve seen a noticeable increase in performance on my computer after I started optimizing my computer’s memory usage with MiniMem. If you find it useful too please let us know in comments. If you have any questions regarding this make sure to ask us in comments.

MiniMem download link.