Windows VM using max memory on start (only 1G or so free)

[Econaut]

I installed the balloon and other virtio drivers but it seems like something may be wrong because this is what I see in the system:

 

 

Almost nothing is running so it's almost as if it's inverted? Is this just normal with Windows 10 VMs or did I miss something?

Edited September 17, 2021 by Econaut

[JorgeB]

Make sure "Initial Memory" and "Max Memory" are set to the same value.

[Econaut]

Oh, interesting - they were not.

 

That fixed it but in so doing, does that mean the VM always has 12G memory allocated to it when running (and UNRAID has 12G less memory usable?

Edited September 17, 2021 by Econaut

[JonathanM]

2 hours ago, Econaut said:

the VM always has 12G memory allocated to it when running (and UNRAID has 12G less memory usable?

This.

KVM ballooning doesn't work the way you think it should.

 

[Econaut]

16 hours ago, JonathanM said:

This.

KVM ballooning doesn't work the way you think it should.

 

 

Fair enough - does that mean that if I revert the settings and just ignore the guest VM memory allocation, I can leave UNRAID with more free memory or does it not work that way either?