Memory-management functions manage system memory. There are two categories of memory-management functions: those that manage global memory and those that manage local memory. Global memory is all memory in the system that
has not been allocated by an application or reserved by the system. Local memory is the memory in the data segment of a Windows application. Following are the memory-management functions:
| Function | Description |
| GetFreeSpace | Retrieves the number of bytes available in the global heap. |
| GetFreeSystemResources | Returns the percentage of free system-resource space. |
| GetWinFlags | Retrieves information about the system-memory configuration. |
| GlobalAlloc | Allocates memory from the global heap. |
| GlobalCompact | Compacts global memory to generate free bytes. |
| GlobalDosAlloc | Allocates global memory that can be accessed by MS-DOS. |
| GlobalDosFree | Frees global memory previously allocated by the GlobalDosAlloc function. |
| GlobalFlags | Returns the flags and lock count of a global memory object. |
| GlobalFree | Removes a global memory object and invalidates the handle of the memory object. |
| GlobalHandle | Retrieves the handle of a global memory object. |
| GlobalLock | Retrieves a pointer to a global memory object speci-fied by a handle. Except in the case of nondiscardable objects in protected (standard or 386-enhanced) mode, the object is locked in memory at the given address and its lock count is increased by one. |
| GlobalLRUNewest | Moves a global memory object to the newest least recently used (LRU) position. |
| GlobalLRUOldest | Moves a global memory object to the oldest LRU position. |
| GlobalNotify | Installs a notification procedure for the current task. |
| GlobalReAlloc | Reallocates a global memory object. |
| GlobalSize | Returns the size, in bytes, of a global memory object. |
| GlobalUnlock | Invalidates the pointer to a global memory object previously retrieved by the GlobalLock function. If the object is discardable, GlobalUnlock decreases the lock count of the object by one. |
| GlobalUnWire | Decreases the lock count set by the GlobalWire function, and unlocks the memory object if the count is zero. |
| GlobalWire | Moves an object to low memory and increases the lock count. |
| LimitEmsPages | Limits the amount of expanded memory that Windows assigns to an application. |
| LocalAlloc | Allocates memory from the local heap. |
| LocalCompact | Compacts local memory. |
| LocalFlags | Returns the memory type of a local memory object. |
| LocalFree | Frees a local memory object from memory if the lock count is zero and invalidates the handle of the memory object. |
| LocalHandle | Retrieves the handle of a local memory object. |
| LocalInit | Initializes a local heap in the specified segment. |
| LocalLock | Locks the local memory object by increasing its lock count. |
| LocalReAlloc | Reallocates a local memory object. |
| LocalShrink | Shrinks the local heap. |
| LocalSize | Returns the size, in bytes, of a local memory object. |
| LocalUnlock | Unlocks a local memory object. |
| LockSegment | Locks a specified data segment in memory. |
| SetSwapAreaSize | Increases the amount of memory that an application reserves for code segments. |
| SwitchStackBack | Returns the stack of the current task to the task's data segment after it had been previously redirected by the SwitchTasksBack function. |
| SwitchStackTo | Changes the stack of the current task to the specified data segment, such as the data segment of a dynamic-link library (DLL). |
| UnlockSegment | Unlocks a specified data segment. |