Linux OS:es will typically allow overcommit of memory. For example a process can allocate 100GB memory, even though the machine only has 8GB physical memory and no swap.
As long as all the allocated memory isn't actually used, the process will work. If the program tries to use it all, the OOM-killer will kill processes to free up memory.
How does this work in Windows? Will Windows refuse to give processes virtual memory unless it can guarantee that this memory can be backed by actual memory (physical RAM or swap)?
Best Answer
Answering my own question, as no one else has.
It seems to be the case that Windows will NOT overcommit memory. This is actually a big difference compared to Linux.
Windows will allow a program to allocate more (virtual) memory than there is RAM on the machine, but ONLY if there is enough free disk space to be able to back the virtual memory requested by the program by disk if necessary.