EDIT: This is actually journal entry #3, and I’m apparently just unable to read. I’m not changing the URL, but I did change the body of the text.

#3 in my ongoing series to document my current school term.


I wasn’t sure how best to access another OS than Windows 10 for this particular journal and I hadn’t heard what the consequences are for using the same one (posted in the general question forum), so I just stuck with Windows 10 for now. I can assure you that I’m much more comfortable with front end languages than with OS operations, so using Windows 10 still is kind of like using another OS…

I decided to use Resource Monitor which is part of the standard distribution of Windows 10. To access this program, press CTRL + SHFT + ESC to open the task manager, click the “Performance” tab, then click “Open Resource Monitor” in the bottom left of the window.

To view details of your memory allocations, click the “Memory” tab in the open resource monitor. This view shows you what parts of your system memory are allocated to what processes/programs. In the upper portion of this window, you should see process names and columns corresponding to their memory allocation values.

In Windows 10, all applications utilize virtual memory by default. In Resource Monitor, the “Commit (KB)” column is the virtual memory value.

On my system currently when I sort by allocated virtual memory, I can see that Brackets (a text/code editor built on NodeJS and Chrome) and several Chrome processes (Chrome runs its tabs as separate individual processes to supposedly utilize memory more efficiently) are allocated the most virtual memory space. This window also provides details on your physical memory allocations as well as the working set and process ID (PID) of currently running processes.