There is not enough free memory to run this program. Exit one or more programs, and then try again.

Hi Mitchell,

As Straker has already stated he has plenty of hard drive 133GB to be exact which is way more than the computer could ever need. I have been troubleshooting this issue on two computers in our network both on the newest version of Windows 11.

The issue is related to Explorer.exe and can be temporarily resolved by restarting the Explorer.exe process in task manager; However, it will randomly reoccur at a later time for no apparent reason. It appears to effect most shortcuts on the desktop however the problem programs can launched from their install locations on C:\

The two laptops i am having the issue on are a Dell Latitude and a Dell Precision both with completely different hardware.

Below are the steps i have tried with no success at resolving this annoying and time consuming glitch.

1. Rebooting temporarily resolves this issue but it returns at a later date
2. Installing all current OEM and Microsoft updates - no change
3. Manually configuring the page file to as large as possible - no change
4. Ran SFC /scannow - no change
5. Ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth - no change
6. Ran memory check - no change
7. Deleting/ recreating the user profiles - issue appeared to go away for a couple of days and returned - no change
8. Digging through the computer with SysInternals RAMMap and ProcessExplorer - nothing stands out

The only remaining option is to try a bare metal restore. I am out of ideas and although I have found plenty of others experiencing the same error I have not found a solution. Any guidance or assistance on this matter will be greatly appreciated I have been working on it for over two months.

It's definitely not just Dell machines.

I have a very similar issue where my memory spikes up to 100% but there are no programs using all of that memory.

I have 32GB of memory as well.

When I close a program something then just starts eating what's available up.

Like others until I reboot there's nothing I can do to fix it and I've tried all of the different options.

I have a Lenovo laptop.

Did anyone figure out a pattern to preventing this issue? I tried the above RAMMAP and Defag links. That didn't help as I didn't expect it would given my machine has 32GB of RAM.

My device shows lots of memory available. It is as if a switch is flipped and the applications don't look to see if memory is available and instead rely on an event or switch that never gets reset. I am working with large Excel files and copying data from SQL results sets into Excel. Possible that has something to do with it.

I have found once I get the error I continually get it for all apps even after closing all applications I will get it until I do a reboot. This is very time consuming having to do this many times/day.

Hi Straker Carryer,

I'm sorry if I didn't describe it more clearly.

Please click on the Start menu -- Settings -- System -- About, then refer to the screenshot below, you will find the virtual memory Settings page:

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Thank you for the reply!

I have plenty of space in my C drive as per my last screenshot in my message. I also shared that my actual memory usage is fine in a screenshot, although virtual memory is an interesting one.

When searching for "system" in the taskbar, I get "system information" and don't see the "advanced -- settings" area that you're talking about:

Note that I have rebooted my computer since last experiencing this issue and I am not experiencing it now (or this wouldn't have opened).