How to open memory space?

I have a zv5000 with 2x512mb memory card, and I play WoW a lot. The problem is I am running out of memory space as soon as I start playing, WoW is using like 530,000k (task manager info), so I end up with only 140 to 84mb memory available. Which it isn't enought to do other stuff while playing. Now the thing is last night while checking Task manager I notice that there is a lot of stuff on the back ground using memory. So I wanted to check if anyone here have a link or list of thing that should be using memory and can't be turned off.

 

Depends what you have running.

First off, there is a very common misconception that used memory is a bad thing. If you don't mean that apps will not load b/c of memory usage, than I wouldn't worry about it. BTW, your "other stuff" should end up using the page file on the HD, so once you go over 1G loaded, WinXP will load and read an additional 2G (or more - depending on settings) from the HD.

See http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm and the section on "Free RAM is wasted RAM".

OTOH, there is no point having stuff running that is not needed. There are two classes - Bloatware and Windows Services.

I recommend running Startup Control Panel and seeing what is being loaded and whether it is needed to be loaded all the time. Anti-Virus and network connections and maybe the ATI Tray Tool are possibly handy, but do you need AIM while you are playing WOW. Disable the ones that you don't want running all the time.

Next look at the Notebook Optimization Guide for background services and you can disable the ones you don't need.

I recommend being cautious with this, though. Check the smallvoid (was snakefoot-fateback) site and The Elder Geek and the mirror of BlackViper's site, as they will explain what the services do and may conflict on their recommendations. The biggest hog is the disk indexing service. Once you disable it, everything else does not gain you a whole lot. And you can easily disable something that you don't need currently and then find out that some new program or upgrade is expecting one of your disabled services to be running, and since 95% of users leave the services alone, you have to get a real good tech before they say "Is the Wireless Zero Configuration Service running, b/c it usually is?"

I know from experience.