Why a Windows 11 VM Shows Nearly 100% Memory Usage in Proxmox VE
A Windows 11 VM in Proxmox VE was showing nearly 100% memory usage in monitoring. Inside Windows Task Manager, however, actual memory usage was only around 30–50% . At first glance, that looks like a monitoring problem. It wasn't. The issue was in the VM configuration: the PVE Ballooning Device had been disabled , which meant Proxmox VE was not receiving the guest memory statistics needed to…
A Windows 11 virtual machine (VM) on a Proxmox VE host was displaying nearly full memory usage in monitoring tools, while the Windows Task Manager showed only around 30-50% usage. This discrepancy was due to the Proxmox VE Ballooning Device being disabled, preventing Proxmox VE from receiving accurate guest memory statistics. The issue was not with the Windows guest OS or monitoring software, but rather an incomplete configuration on the Proxmox side.
To resolve the problem, the Ballooning Device needed to be enabled in the VM's hardware settings. After enabling the Ballooning Device and restarting the VM, the memory statistics reported by Proxmox VE aligned with the actual memory usage in Windows Task Manager.
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