All my ram used all of a sudden.

x BlueRobot said:

I'm confused about why a large amount has been cached for other processes which are inactive

That i have no idea of why :P

You will need to either select Spybot or MSE as your real-time protection program, and then enable the selected program to boot at Startup.

Personally, I prefer to use MSE it is the most lightweight program (memory consumption) and the most stable with the Windows operating system. The definition updates are delivered through Windows Update almost daily.

   Warning

DO NOT select both programs to boot at Startup, or run both programs at the same time, this will cause severe conflicts and problems such as crashes.

Sorry for jumping in. Don't mean to step on anyone's toes. :)

One thing about Windows 7 that takes some getting used to is how it utilizes RAM. The Windows 7 philosophy is very simple: unused RAM is wasted RAM. Even if a computer has 16GB installed, just about all of it will be assigned a specific function. Some might be cached, some might be in standby, etc. But it's gonna get used somehow, someway.

You could also try running a Clean Startup (AKA: Clean Boot) to see if any of your installed programs or services are causing a conflict.

Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup