ESX 3.5 and Windows VM running out of memory

[Pmarsha1]

I have a Windows 2003 server that is alerting in MOM for low memory. In task manager it shows it only has 6MB available so the alert looks genuine.

In Virtual Center and ESXTOP the VM is only using 30% of memory.

How can this happen? Which is correct?

It doesn't look like the balloon driver has been active.

[weinstein5]

MOM shows what the Guest O/S thinks is occurring and it could very well have only 6 MB of mempry free -

VCV and ESXTOP show what memory the VMKERNEL is giving the VM - remember the VMKERNEL uses Trasparent Page Sharing to help economize on memory - this is the VMKERNEL's ability to recognize common pages and store them one time in read only memory - if those pages are written to copy is made and the VM is ablw to write to it -