What does FreeMem do?

FreeMem makes sure that your memory (RAM) gets used at its best. By freeing-up the specified amount of memory, you can ensure that your PC is working at its best and you can ensure that your PC does not bother you by accessing the swapfile too often. You can also get a just-rebooted feeling if you choose to free-up larger amounts of RAM.

Why use FreeMem frequently?

Freeing-up memory is as important as defragmenting your hard disk. Both is most important to boost your computing experience. Defragmenting your hard disk makes sure that your data is accessed in the most efficient way. Freeing-up your memory makes sure that the hard disk is not accessed while loading this data. A swapfile access during a file-load has the same effect as a fragmented hard disk. And you do defragment your hard disk, don't you? Why not activate the turbo-option for your memory by using FreeMem?

What are the differences between FreeMem Standard and FreeMem Professional?

FreeMem Standard is there to give everyone the free capability to use the FreeMem technology. By using FreeMem Standard, you can achieve all relevant speed-up effects. FreeMem Professional is the profi way to handle memory. The automatic background operations ensure that you never have to bother about your memory performance any more. If your memory gets too clumsy, FreeMem Professional automatically activates an emergency free-up and your programs come back to life. Take a look at the detailed feature description to get some more details on the differences between these two versions.

Why use Idle-Detection?

Everything a program does needs some time to do this. This is true for FreeMem, too. Unfortunately, a free-up operation is nothing easy for a PC. It can boost your CPU-usage to 100% easily. So it is most important to not free-up while you need your processor for other things. FreeMem is here to increase your PC performance and not to make the hourglass-time even longer! The Idle-Detection makes sure that FreeMem will only work if there is enough CPU-power left. Whenever you are just doing nothing or you are doing something that does not drive your CPU nuts, FreeMem can optimize your memory. And remember, this is usually most of the time.

Will FreeMem Standard stay free?

Yes. FreeMem Standard will always be free.

What are the best settings for my PC?

All knowledge on this topic is behind the "Defaults" button available on every page in FreeMem Professional. Just click it and see what good values are for you.

Will FreeMem increase my system stability?

FreeMem does not harm your system files in any way. It does not use VXDs or any other special memory driver. The fact that you have free memory available at most times, does increase your system stability. There is no need to reboot any more.

Free memory is wasted memory?

This is an interesting question. It seems very sound, but it is not. Of course, you bought your memory to use it and it is a bad idea to have it all free. But it is a good idea to have some free memory available. Each software needs memory and needs even more memory while you work with it. So any action you do will result in a swap-file access if your memory is filled completely. You know the response time of your favorite applications best. Why make your program slower than it needs to be? If you can safe a swap-file access because there is free memory, this is a direct speed improvement. You can easily verify this by just watching your hourglass and hearing your harddisk. The major amount of time is needed to do access the harddisk. How much faster can your PC be if the harddisk access is not needed at this particular moment? FreeMem Professional can accomplish this task by monitoring your memory usage and free-up some RAM at the right moment.

Can Windows use more than 64MB of memory?

Yes. Microsoft Windows 95 can access up to 2GB of memory. There is absolutely no indication that this has changed with other versions of Windows. However depending on your system configuration, this might not be true. Microsoft has published an article regarding a bug with Windows 95/98/ME and large memory configurations.

Windows NT/2000/XP have different memory restrictions regarding the edition you have licensed.

Does FreeMem work with Windows NT?

Yes, FreeMem works with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. FreeMem is tested to work with our without any service pack. However, installing the latest Service Pack is highly recommended.

Does FreeMem work with Windows 2000?

Yes, FreeMem works with Microsoft Windows 2000. Beginning with versions 4 FreeMem can take advantage of advanced Windows 2000 features.

Is FreeMem compatible with Microsoft Windows XP?

Yes, FreeMem Version 5 works perfectly with Microsoft Windows XP.

Special Note: Microsoft decided to make the upgrading process as safe as possible. Unfortunately many tools are simply deactivated after displaying a small warning. FreeMem is one of the tools that get deactivated during upgrade process. You can easily reactivate FreeMem by running FreeMem from the start-menu. Make sure the option to "Start automatically with Windows" is active.

How can I further tune my computer?

If you are running Windows NT or Windows 2000, you might try out CacheSet from Mark Russinovich. If you are running Windows98, you are lucky and don't need any cache tuning. Windows98 has a right perfect hard disk-cache and you better not limit it.

I bought the SANDRA bundle. Where is my registered FreeMem?

Unfortunately, buydirect.com has special conditions on how to distribute the program. So you might have problems finding the registered FreeMem Professional after downloading the bundle. The bundle comes as a single executable which contains the SANDRA setup and a single file called "fmpro4.exe". You have to run this single "fmpro4.exe" to install your registered copy of FreeMem Professional. You can use WinZip to extract this file from the downloaded executable. If you still have problems, please ask us at support@meikel.com

How can I solve my resource problem?

Many computers running Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME are experiencing resource problems. Every resource is a small number for Microsoft Windows. To identify these resources, Windows reserves small areas of memory to keep track of these numbers. There are three known areas USER, SYSTEM and GDI. Once an area is full, your computer will start to behave strangely. This is not related to memory at all, but to the fact that these areas are simply full. Only a reboot can solve this problem. For the moment there is no known solution to this problem.

Lots of users report that FreeMem helps with system stability and by simply forcing Windows to do its clean-up job many leaks are fixexd. However there is absolutely no proof that FreeMem can help with resource problems.

Microsoft Windows NT and Microsoft Windows 2000 do NOT have any resource problems. These operating systems manage resources in a completely different way and for real power users the latest version is highly recommended.

Microsoft once published an article on resources but removed it in the meantime. You can find a backup-copy here.

How can I get a new registration code?

If you are a registered user of FreeMem Professional and you lost your registration code, please write an email to support@meikel.com. Make sure you include your full name and registration details so that we can identify you in our customer database and resend you your 12-digit registration code. There is no need to send your credit-card details with this email.

From time to time, we do special offers where people don't get a 12-digit registration code but instead receive a fully functional copy of FreeMem Professional that never needs any code. If you lost that copy, just email us with your contact details and we'll send you a 12-digit registration code to ensure you can continue to use the benefits of FreeMem Professional.

What are the system requirements for FreeMem?

FreeMem Version 5 tested with all known versions of

• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows 98
• Microsoft Windows ME
• Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Other requirements are:

• 2 MB hard disk space
• 32MB to 2GB of memory