Get memory usage of computer in Windows with Python

Question

How can I tell what the computer's overall memory usage is from Python, running on Windows XP?

Answer 1

You'll want to use the wmi module. Something like this:

import wmi
comp = wmi.WMI()

for i in comp.Win32_ComputerSystem():
   print i.TotalPhysicalMemory, "bytes of physical memory"

for os in comp.Win32_OperatingSystem():
   print os.FreePhysicalMemory, "bytes of available memory"

Answer 2

You can also just call GlobalMemoryStatusEx() (or any other kernel32 or user32 export) directly from python:

import ctypes

class MEMORYSTATUSEX(ctypes.Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ("dwLength", ctypes.c_ulong),
        ("dwMemoryLoad", ctypes.c_ulong),
        ("ullTotalPhys", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
        ("ullAvailPhys", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
        ("ullTotalPageFile", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
        ("ullAvailPageFile", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
        ("ullTotalVirtual", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
        ("ullAvailVirtual", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
        ("sullAvailExtendedVirtual", ctypes.c_ulonglong),
    ]

    def __init__(self):
        # have to initialize this to the size of MEMORYSTATUSEX
        self.dwLength = ctypes.sizeof(self)
        super(MEMORYSTATUSEX, self).__init__()

stat = MEMORYSTATUSEX()
ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalMemoryStatusEx(ctypes.byref(stat))

print("MemoryLoad: %d%%" % (stat.dwMemoryLoad))

Not necessarily as useful as WMI in this case, but definitely a nice trick to have in your back pocket.

Answer 3

You can query the performance counters in WMI. I've done something similar but with disk space instead.

A very useful link is the Python WMI Tutorial by Tim Golden.