1). Start any application, say Word. Open some large documents. 2).

Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to open Windows Task Manager and click Processes tab an d sort the list in descending order on Mem Usage. You will notice that WINWORD.E XE will be somewhere at the top, using multiple MBs of memory. 3). Now switch to Word and simply minimize it. (Don't use the Minimize All Windo ws option of the task bar).

4). Now go back to the Windows Task Manager and see where WINWORD.EXE is listed. Most probably you will not find it at the top. You will typically have to scrol l to the bottom of the list to find Word. Now check out the amount of RAM it is using. Surprised? The memory utilization has reduced by a huge amount 5). Minimize each application that you are currently not working on by clicking on the Minimize button & you can increase the amount of available RAM by a subst antial margin. Depending upon the number and type of applications you use togeth er, the difference can be as much as 50 percent of extra RAM.

In any multitasking system, minimizing an application means that it won't be uti lized by the user right now. Therefore, the OS automatically makes the applicati on use virtual memory & keeps bare minimum amounts of the code in physical RAM.