My computer said that it had to make more virtual memory. What I was wondering does this hurt the laptop and anyway?

And why does this happen?

Virtual Memory is a section of the hard drive that is used like RAM. Most computers use the Virtual Memory as a storage space for little bits of info fo rthe programs you're using, a conduit between the programs and the RAM itself. The space used for Virtual Memory is usually double the amount of RAM that you have. So depending on the free space on your hard drive, it's not that big a deal.

If your computer says its Virtual memory needs to be enlarged, you may have too many programs open, or one of the programs has a memory leak. A simple restart usally fixes the issue.. for awhile, anyway.

Don't know the specification of your computer and operating system, but usually this a sign that you need more real memory and that your hard disk is getting a little full.

If you're using Windows XP it can just about run in 128mb but to do that it has to keep swapping memory to the hard disk as virtual memory, which slows everything down. With 256mb the whole of Windows itself can fit into memory, with a little room left for programs, but if you are running several programs there may still be some virtual memory use. Usually this is handled unobtrusively, apart from a drop in performance, but if the hard disk is getting full or needs defragmenting Windows occasionally has to stop to sort things out, which is when you get this error message.

One of the reasons why I'm planning to avoid Windows Vista is that it needs a minimum of 512mb to run, a gigabyte to work without frequent memory swaps. "Vista Ready" only means that a PC can run Vista, not that it does it well...

I'm using Windows XP and I have been playing more online games lately. And I have usually three for four tabs are windows open at a time.

I'm thinking now that if I'm going to play games I should only have that window open.