title: What is the standby list in Windows memory management?
body: <p>The memory management scheme in Windows is very complex, and I'm trying to understand it better so I can diagnose memory problems more accurately.</p>
  
  <p>For example, our C++ application (in SysInternal's Process Explorer) shows 1.4GB "Virtual Size", 400MB "Private Bytes" and 366MB "Working Set".</p>
  
  <p>I did some research and found this question:
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1984186/what-is-private-bytes-virtual-bytes-working-set">What is private bytes, virtual bytes, working set?</a></p>
  
  <p>This is a great read, but some things still don't add up. Specifically, the highest voted answer states that Virtual Bytes includes standby lists. I am not really sure what these are, and any research I've done has yielded less than friendly explanations of it. My biggest question is: How does moving pages to the standby list affect the application's virtual address space (if at all)? In other words, with a virtual size so much bigger than any other size, is the difference fragmented memory?</p>
  
  <p>If anyone can help me understand this a little better I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!</p>