Virtual Memory

Virtual memory is also known as the "swap" or "page" file.

Windows uses virtual memory to store data for programs that you are running that do not have enough priority to be held in RAM.

There are many "old wives tales" about virtual memory settings.
The worst of these is that virtual memory needs to be a fixed multiple of system RAM.
In reality, the less system RAM you have, the larger your available virtual memory needs to be.

Here is a link to a good article on Virtual Memory.

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

Even though it is written for XP, all of the advice applies to Windows 2000.

Now, what to do for your problem?

Start by checking how much free space is available on your hard drive.
You need to have a minimum of 1GB free hard drive space available for virtual memory.

Clean up your hard drive as needed to increase free hard drive space.

Then, boot into Safe Mode, and run Disk Defragmenter.

Check your virtual memory settings.

Right click on My Computer.
Select Properties.
Click on the Advanced tab.
In the Performance section, click on Settings.
Click on the Advanced tab.
In the Virtual Memory section,
look at the information.
If it says System Controlled, you should not need to do anything else.
If you have less than 1GB available for Virtual Memory, click on Change.
If there is a maximum size set, change that to blank.
(you want Windows to be able to use more virtual memory as needed)
Accept the settings change.

When you boot, the new virtual memory settings take effect.

If you still have problems, you may have either bad RAM, or corrupt system files.

Chas