Killing Windows 7 process which is using memory - look at Commit or Private?

I'm trying to clear up memory usage on my windows 7 with 2 GB RAM

Oracle.exe never shows up in the top processes, but the Resource Monitor shows it uses 637 Mb of commit (virtual memory) v 12Mb of Private memory

So my question is - is it actually NOT hogging the RAM and I dont need to do anything about it?

p.s. i do have 2 huge java apps running at 600 Mb private each which are the guilty guys.

Answer

In essence, yes, no worries. Windows 7's "Commited Bytes" metric actually reflects the total amount of memory (physical + virtual) that Windows has assigned to the process. This includes "cached" memory which can be freed if need be.

Also, if you have two Java apps running at 600MB private each, there's not a lot of RAM usage to reduce since Windows and some other programs you probably don't want to quit need some, too. Have you considered just upgrading? Just shell out those 30 bucks and be done with it :)