"Program too big to fit in memory" message

I keep getting the message "program too big to fit in memory" each time I try to install a new program. Its not just one certain program but every program! I have ran CCleaner and defragged, I went through the startup programs and stopped all unnecesarry programs. I have ran scans using AVG free,Threatfire, and SUPERAntiSpyware. I have also made sure that all drivers are up to date. I read quite a few suggestions on the internet and have tried most of them but all of them are for problems a little different than mine. I dont know if this is related but I also cant burn any cds using Windows Media Player, it gives the reason for this as "Windows Media Player cannot burn the files. If the burner is busy, wait for the curent task to finish. If necessary, verify that the burner is connected properly and that you have installed the latest device driver" or ERROR COOD11C9. RealPlayer is also installed on my computer and it wont open at all. The uninstall componant is missing so I cant uninstall and do a reinstall. I just recently upgraded to Vista service pack 2. Can you let me know if this is enough info and/or what else you may need to know. I am going crazy and spending hours trying things that just dont help. I have an external hard drive that all my important files are saved in so even reformatting ( Im not sure thats the right word for resetting the computer back to factory standards ) would help me but I dont know how to do that. Im no computer expert so if you could not get too technical, just things that an average computer user would understand

 

Hello Olivas6974.
Questions:
How much actual ram do you have? (Can find this out by going to My Computer, right clicking onto it and going down to Properties, and then its listed under General Information)
How big is your page file? (Which can be found by going to the same as mentioned above, but going to Advanced, and then selecting "Settings" under Performance, then under the Advanced tab of that new window, under Virtual Memory, the number is listed there.)
How much hard drive space do you have left? (Which can be found by right clicking on your hard drive in My Computer and going down to properties, and the number of "Free Space" would be listed there.

Thanks.

 

I have 3.0 GB of RAM. The page file is 3114 MB and there is 45.1 GB of free space on the computers main hard drive ( the C: drive), there is 48.0 GB of free space on the D: drive and 206 GB on the external G: drive. Hope this helps

 

Wow. You shouldn't be getting any memory errors. I'll research this a bit further and see whats going on and get back to you.

 

I suggest you eliminate the swapfile by going back and turning it off (effectively deleting it), reboot and then test. Don't forget to reset the swapfile again at a later stage.

 

I dont know what you mean by the swapfile, so sorry. Is there a way to just set it back to the way it came new? It didnt come with a cd for Vista. There is nothing on the C and D drives that is important so erasing all that and starting anew wont hurt. How can I do this?

 

Sorry, I see it was called the page file earlier (swapfile = pagefile = virtual memory). You looked at the settings earlier.