I have 2Gb of Ram in my Vista Ultimate machine. It also has two very fast, very big SATA drives both of which have vista managed virtual memory setup.. Total between them 4961 or thereabouts...
My question is when I boot my machine even at standstill memory usage sits at 40-50% of my 2Gb. I dont believe I have that much in the way of startup programs - AVG, Messenger etc - I keep minimal startup programs so things move fast.
I am concerned VIsta is hogging my memory for no apprent reason.
SHould I be concerned or is this a red herring I am feeding myself?

It's a red herring. Windows Vista has a different algorithm for caching programs, DLLs and such compared to prior versions of Windows, so it appears to be using more memory when in fact that memory is still readily available if needed by system or programs. There's really little sense in keeping memory "free" since if it's not being used, it's being wasted.
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"Smilerfive"

The Microsoft Performance Team blog post explains this in detail:
blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/04/13/memory-management-dude-where-s-my-ram.aspx
"Smilerfive"

"Smilerfive" wrote

Red Herring, but tasty. Vista's memory management is much better. It tries to find use for as much of the RAM a possible,caching programs and data based on past use. Don't worry about it. Memory will be released for apps as they need it. See these links:
blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx
Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 2 by Mark Russinovich microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/03/VistaKernel/
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]