Why am I showing zero ram?

My computer had the EthanA virus, and it really messed up Word (Office 97). I bought McAfee Office 2000 and cleaned the virus with Virus Scan. I uninstalled and reinstalled Word, but haven't been able to use it, as I keep getting messages that RAM is at 0. I have archived Nuts & Bolts and First Aid (both part of McAfee Office) as it appeared that they were using a lot of RAM, but am still having the problem. I can use Excel and other programs, but not Word or CorelDraw. I'm not sure that I can add more RAM to my computer. What do I need to look for to see if I can add more RAM, and/or what can I do to free up more memory so I can use Word again? Also, without Nuts & Bolts, is there a way to see how much RAM each application is using? Thanks!!!

This question was answered on September 22, 1999. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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There are a couple of things you might want to do to free up some ram, but you may be getting an erroneous message We'll discuss that later What we are going to do is to decrease the amount of programs that will be opening at startup To do this , right click the start button on your desktop, then select open After you do that , you will double click on Programs, then double click on startup This will open a window listing all the programs that will be opened when Windows starts These programs do not actually run when they are opened, but put in the background so that when you start to run them, they are already loaded into RAM and are therefore accessed a little quicker Access time to these programs is slower if they are removed from the startup folder, so carefully weigh your options regarding which programs you use the most and therefore would prefer to have quicker access to After you have decided which ones you can afford to remove from the startup folder, highlight them individually and then press the delete key Right clicking and then selecting delete will have the same effect

As for the virus (es) itself Some viruses are tsr's, which means terminate and stay resident This means that every time you boot up, that virus will go to work, be it to supply an erroneous message or to actually do damage to your system SOme viruses also infect Word documents or Excel macros It would not hurt to replace (not necessarily increase ) your memory.

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Posted by Ken Colburn of Data Doctors on September 22, 1999

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