Insufficient Virtual Memory on the Server

When the applications running on a server request more memory than is available on the server, Microsoft® Windows® opens the Server Process - Out of Virtual Memory dialog box with the following text:

Your system is running low on virtual memory. Please close some applications. You can then start the System option in the Control Panel and choose the Virtual Memory button to create an additional paging file or increase the size of your current paging file.

Use Virtual Memory in Control Panel to make sure that the amount of virtual memory at least 1.5 times the amount of physical memory available on the server. Microsoft SQL Server™ dynamically requests or frees memory as needed on Microsoft Windows NT® systems. SQL Server should not cause this error on Windows NT when running with the default configuration options. For more information, see Configuring Virtual Memory.

If the virtual memory setting seems appropriate, consider the following actions:

• Check that the SQL Server max server memory and min server memory configuration options are not set high enough to use most of the virtual memory. For more information, see Server Memory Options.
• Check that other applications on the server are not using the available virtual memory.
• Use the max server memory and min server memory configuration options to control the amount of memory requested by SQL Server.