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This chapter depicts how to use the W Memory Info program.
After you customized WMI, you can run it by clicking on its icon which resides at:
Start Menu->Programs->W Memory Info
When WMI starts (and the the Start WMI as minimized option is not on) the following window appears:
WMI main window
The main window of WMI contains
the sensors, which display you the collected system information. The
used amount is represented by a yellow-like
bar and the green-like bar shows
what you have free. The texts (aside from "Used"
and "Free") in this window are also colored in order to show you
how much resources are used.
(NOTE:
colors can be redefined and hereby may be different.)
The memory sensor monitors the memory usage and the size of the disk cache. Please, note that this sensor shows only the current size of the cache and not the utilization of it. Resource usage is also counted differently for this sensor, because for the disk cache size the more it matches the specified maximum the better. The cpu sensor is located on the right side of the main window, and shows how your processor is currently utilized. The last monitor WMI provides is the disk usage sensor, which is displayed as a black oblique rectangle and supervises file system operations, including both the physical disk and disk cache accesses. If this sensor is turned on it runs separately from the other sensors and updates itself every 300 milliseconds.
The following table outlines sensor levels, for more details, please click here.
|
Color
|
Meaning
|
|
green
(low-level) |
Your system has lots of free resources,
you can run more programs safely.
|
|
yellow
(medium-level) |
If your physical memory sensor reports yellow
there's nothing to fear. |
|
red
(high-level) |
If your physical memory sensor reports red it means that your physical memory is to become full and Windows must use the slower disk for storage. If your virtual memory sensor reports red, you can expect slow operation and a system crash. Remedy: close some programs, change swap file size, optimize Windows |
As you will see in the following picture, WMI
also supports the system tray (taskbar):
WMI icon on the tray
If you move the mouse over the WMI icon W Memory Info shows you the current memory status:
WMI icon showing data
If the colored
tray icons option is enabled the physical memory usage will be represented
on the tray with colored icons. The green
color means that 50% of your physical memory is still free, the yellow
icon states that 51-79 percent of the memory is used and finally, you will see
the red colored icon if 20 percent of the
physical memory or less remain available.
(NOTE: this function is
not related to the memory usage sensor.
If the function is turned on every minute WMI
updates the tray icon with the current status of the physical memory,
irrespective of the update interval of the memory sensors.)
The taskbar icon can be used as a way to quit from WMI;
just press the right mouse button on the tray icon. If you click the
left mouse button you will see the main window.
The functions of WMI are accessed via the main menu, which can be reached:
The main menu is outlined here:
Available menu items:
The Memory Info dialog of WMI
The Disk Usage Statistic dialog of WMI
The Configuration dialog of WMI
The About dialog of WMI
When the use log file option is enabled, WMI writes all the sensor and event information to a file you specified. This log file is either a simple text file, so even Notepad can read it, or (if html support is turned on) you can use a web browser to study the log file. At the end of the log file, you will find summarized information, devised to help you in optimizing your system.
Notes:
The following table summarizes the signs used in log files:
| Description | Sign |
| error | !-! |
| low memory usage | no special sign |
| medium memory usage | @m |
| high memory usage | !m |
| low CPU usage | no special sign |
| medium CPU usage | @c |
| high CPU usage | !c |
| other events | +-+ |
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