I have a computer running Windows 10 Enterprise that has 8 GB RAM and automatically managed paging file size [currently 24 GB paging file size]. This computer is running:
- Batches using task scheduler
- A virtual machine with Windows 7 that has assigned 1.5 GB RAM and runs custom processes that programmatically send files from the host operating system [Windows 10] using a VPN connection
This computer is running 24×7 and its only purpose is to process and send those files. Nobody uses it, and only sometimes I access it using Remote Desktop just to check a few things.
This computer started to "freeze" if I left it idle for more than 3 days [average time]. After it freezes I can ping it but there is no way to access it using Remote Desktop. I have to access it directly and the only thing I have found when this happens is that it shows a white full screen, but I'm allowed to login. After I login the Virtual Machine is also unresponsive and the Windows Event Viewer shows "windows successfully diagnosed a low virtual memory condition".
I have noticed the computer can run without this problem if I login using Remote Desktop at least once a day, and the problem occurs only if I don't login for several days.
I started to analyze this problem using Performance Monitor to check the Private Bytes counter for all the processes and found that the System process memory usage starts to increase just after I close Remote Desktop session and keeps increasing until I login again.
I left the Performance Monitor collecting data for 1 day and then I logged in the next day using Remote Destkop. The graph shows System process memory keeps increasing and just when I login [near the end of the graph] it decreases:
I was wondering this is a driver memory leak, since the assigned page file size is large enough for virtual memory.