windows_exporter/docs/runbooks/windowsmemoryhighusage.md

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WindowsMemoryHighUsage

Meaning

Physical memory usage exceeds the configured threshold for 15 minutes. The default is 90%. Usage is total physical memory minus available memory; available memory includes reclaimable pages and differs from strictly free memory.

Impact

Memory pressure may cause paging, application latency, and allocation failures. A high ratio alone does not prove the system is paging heavily.

Diagnosis

1. Inspect windows:memory_usage:ratio, windows:memory_used:bytes, and windows_memory_available_bytes on the affected host.
2. Check windows:memory_swap_page_operations:rate, disk latency, and windows:memory_committed:ratio for related pressure.
3. In Resource Monitor, inspect processes' working sets, commit usage, and hard faults. Look for growth after a deployment or an unexpected workload increase.
4. Inspect windows_memory_pool_nonpaged_bytes and windows_memory_pool_paged_bytes if application working sets do not explain the usage. Driver or kernel pools may be growing.

Mitigation

Reduce concurrent work, move workloads, or add physical memory. Investigate leaks in the responsible application or driver. Restart a service only after assessing its availability impact and preserving useful diagnostics. Pagefile changes affect the commit limit and do not add physical memory. Confirm available memory and service latency recover.