W3WP.EXE -- use page file? (by default)

[jdemmi]

I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this question. If not please suggest the proper forum.

I have a packaged application which is built on vb.net/c#.net and asp.net.

The server it is installed on has 2 GB of physical memory and a 2GB page file.

Yesterday the application "crashed" with an out of memory exception.

I am unable to tell the amount of physical memory that was being used by w3wp.exe just prior to the crash.

My question is, BY DEFAULT, does the w3wp process use the page file? Or would the application have to be coded in such a way to allow for or force paging.

The reason I am asking this is because I want to know if increasing my page file will provide me a temporay solution (until I can increase the server's physical memory).

I see that the app pool, in IIS, has options to force recyling of the app pool when a user defined amount of physical and/or virtual memory is consumed. I cannot, however, use this function because any time the app pool is recycled any logged in users will be kicked out and have to relogin.

I guess though, that this is, in a way, better than the users being kicked out and not being able to login until the process is manually recycled.

If you need more info in order to answer my question please let me know.

Thanks.

PS -- Windows Server 2003, IIS 6

-- Jason
"It's Just Ones and Zeros