Win ME virtual memory problems

My OS is over 2 years old. My 30 gig drive has 17 gigs free. I’m running 256 megs of memory…why am I lately crashing out of programs with virtual memory problems. I’m a heavy photoshop user and I’m running proprietary software for developing e-courses. Oh, and yep running Outlook at the same time.

I’m having to reboot several times during the work day.

My question is this: a) is this a microsoft self distruct problem?, b) should I manually be setting my virtual memory settings (currently the OS is doing that) c) Could it be Norton Internet Security 2003 hogging the memory? d) would the machine run faster if the drive was partitioned?

Thanks,

JT