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I want to set the max limit on the physical memory an application can use in IIS 7. Should I set a limit on Private Memory Limit or Virtual Memory Limit? Can some one point me to documentation of all settings in IIS 7

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up vote 10 down vote accepted

Limit the Private Memory (Committed bytes) this is what corresponds to your actual Memory usage.

Virtual Memory isn't shared across applications and on x64 worker processes will generally reserve much much, more than they actually end up using. Forcing limits on this really only makes sense on x86.

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Thanks, Dominic. If we limit the private memory, what happens when the limit is reached? Does it starts using virtual memory on the disc or does the application pool recycles? –  kishore Aug 6 '10 at 15:03
The worker process will recycle once a memory limit is hit. One thing to keep in mind if your application relies heavily on session state is that on recycles you'll lose that session state information if you're storing it inProc (default), you will want to move to SQL based session state if you have an app thats recycling often and is dependent on session data or else your users may have to re-login every time the worker process recycles. –  Dominic D Aug 6 '10 at 16:35
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