Error message when you start Windows XP after you upgrade from an earlier version of Windows: "Your system is low on virtual memory"

SYMPTOMS:

When you first start Windows XP once an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you can get the following error:

Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file. During this process, memory requests for some applications may be denied.

Click OK; you may get the following error message:

The application failed to initialize properly. 0xc0000017

When you attempt to run Windows, you may get the following error message:

IEXVCES.EXE

The exception unknown software exception (0xc00000fd) occurred in the application at location 0x01ac5937.

CAUSE:

If the Aventail attach virtual private network (VPN) program is installed on your PC this problem may happen.

If the Aventail attach program is not installed on your PC, this problem may happen if the virtual memory is low.

WORKAROUND:

To resolve this problem, use one of the following techniques.

Method 1: Remove Aventail Connect
Restart the PC in safe mode, and then take out Aventail Connect. To start Windows in safe mode, press F8 during startup, and then choose the safe mode option from the extended boot menu.

Method 2: Exclude the Svchost.exe file
Attach the Svchost.exe executable file to the Aventail Connect exclusion list. The Svchost.exe file is stored in the %Systemroot%\System32 folder. E.g. this file may be in the following location:
C:\Windows\System32

MORE INFORMATION:

Random access memory (RAM) that is needed to run a program or an operation, Windows uses virtual memory to compensate.

Virtual memory merges the computer’s RAM with temporary space on your hard disk. When RAM runs low, virtual memory moves data from RAM to a space that is called a "paging file." Moving data to and from the paging file frees RAM to complete its work.

The faster your programs will run if the more RAM on your PC. If a lack of RAM is slowing your PC, you might want to raise virtual memory to compensate. Your computer can read data from RAM much faster than from a hard disk. Therefore, adding RAM is a better solution.

Virtual memory and error messages

You should attach more RAM or increase the size of the paging file to run programs on your PC, if you error messages about low virtual memory. Windows regularly handle virtual memory automatically. But you can manually the size of the virtual memory as the default size is not enough.