Where did all the memory go?

Question

We've built a windows service which uses some COM+ components (developed by us). It runs on a Windows server (virtual through vmware) and something is eating memory.

Memory check

I did a small application which runs through all Process.GetProcesses and return their total memory usage:

First run:

C:\Temp>ProcessExplorer.exe
Virtual: 1613Mb, Physical: 318Mb

Few minutes later:

C:\Temp>ProcessExplorer.exe
Virtual: 1492Mb, Physical: 48Mb

Task manager

Looking at processes in task manager I don't see any application with high memory usage. But If I look at the Performance tab, no memory is available.

I have let the server run a few days without our application and the memory usage was constant at about 30%. I turned on the application yesterday and the memory usage on the server had increased to about 60% a couple of hours ago.

So where did all the memory go? How do I find it? :)

Answer 1

Windows' Task Manager is a very limited tool - check out Process Explorer and perfmon.msc.