windows3-3  Exercise 3: Does Standby Memory Give Way?
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Verification: Level 1 (run on the author's machine, no administrator rights; the programs it starts are stopped at the end).

Prediction (work this out before running the script):

  Touching 6 GB while about 11.6 GB is on the standby list and a few GB are free: the free list
  should fall to about zero, the standby list should give up whatever remains of the 6 GB (roughly
  2 GB), and Available should fall by about 6 GB. After freeing, the 6 GB should come back to the
  free list. If the standby memory were a leak, it would not shrink at all and Windows would have to
  use the page file or fail allocations instead.

Command (giveway.ps1 saved in the current folder):

  .\giveway.ps1 -GB 6

Output (real, from the author's machine on 2026-10-24; your numbers will differ):

  before           free  3.75 GB   standby 11.58 GB   available 15.32 GB
  touched 6 GB     free  0.01 GB   standby  9.53 GB   available  9.53 GB
  freed            free  6.01 GB   standby  9.53 GB   available 15.53 GB

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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  Free fell from 3.75 GB to 0.01 GB (3.74 GB), standby gave up 2.05 GB (11.58 to 9.53) and Available
  fell 5.79 GB (15.32 to 9.53), close to the 6 GB touched; after the free, 6.01 GB returned to the
  free list and Available recovered to 15.53 GB. So the standby memory was cache: it gave way when asked,
  and the program's memory came back when it let go. A leak would look different in the same test:
  after the touch-and-free, Available would not recover (the memory would still be held by something),
  and the standby list would not be the thing shrinking.
  Common mistakes: expecting standby to fall by the whole 6 GB (free memory is used first); reading the
  recovery of Available as proof that nothing else leaks; and running a test larger than Available
  on a machine you cannot afford to slow down.