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Windows 98 - Free up the working memory completely

November 26, 2013
Updated: December 6, 2021
Quick overview:

After you have started a program or a game, you will notice that the working memory after exiting the program no longer has the size it had directly after starting Windows. This is due to the insufficient memory management of this operating system.

With Windows 2000 or XP this problem is avoided as far as possible, but our Windows 98 still has some problems here. There are therefore programs for Windows that can clear the memory of leftovers on request. Here is a tip that you can use to restore the working memory by double-clicking without robbing processor or RAM resources with additional programs:

Restoring working memory - conserving resources

1. Right-click on a free area of the desktop and select New > Text file from the context menu that appears. This is called Free up memory (but the name doesn't matter).

2. Double-click on the text file and enter only the following line: FreeMem = Space(32000000)

3. Click on File > Save as... and select All files under File type. Now write the extension .vbs after the file name. In my example, the file is now: Free up memory.vbs.

4. Every time you double-click on this file, your memory is cleared of additional ballast - by exactly 32MB (this is why the number 32000000 is in the line above). For example, if you want to gain 64MB, write 64000000 in the brackets. However, you should NEVER enter more than half of your memory here - otherwise you could receive an error message in the best case or, in the worst case, your system could crash. So be careful!

Attention: Internet Explorer 6.0 is required to run VBS scripts under Windows 98, which you can get here.

NOTE FOR NEW PUBLICATION: This article was produced by Sandro Villinger and comes from the Windows Tweaks archive, which has been built up since the late 1990s.

Founded Windows Tweaks as a teenager in 2001, his helpful PC tricks made it Germany's most visited Windows site (at the time Sandro looked like this). He then went on to write for international publications such as PC-Praxis, Computerbild, PCWorld in the USA, IMTEST.de and Hifi.de. Sandro's main job is as Global Product Marketing Lead and Consultant for various global tech companies, including Microsoft, AVG, Avast, Nero, TeamViewer, Swiss IT Security Group and now currently in the fintech sector for Gendigital. But he can't get rid of his passion and shares his tweaks here again. Privately, he enjoys traveling the world and loves Asia, especially Japan, Singapore and Korea, but also natural places like Iceland and the Nordics. You can reach Sandro via e-mail.

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