From: Mike Capone (drgrant_at_ziplink.net)
Date: Mon Mar 27 2000 - 12:45:25 EST
If you require any of these programs to run the system properly
over a period of time, then there are several applications
that should be removed and deleted from the computer. (i.e., any program
that LEAKS gdi is really a piece of garbage.) I had a customer
that was using an old version of LVIEW pro which leaked GDI every time
he opened up a picture. Since this guy was a porn hound, his machine
crashed in about 5-10 minutes of porn viewing. (the leakage kept adding
up to the point where the fonts started to go nuts, etc.) The solution
to the problem was simply to change him to AcDeeSee, which doesnt
leak GDI..... Other apps leak/invade memory in subtle, nearly
undetectable ways. A perfect example is Goldmine, that famous hunk
of garbage groupware client. It errantly thrashes into other apps
running on a machine, and will bring a 9X box to its knees in a few
hours of multitasking. One of my clients has this "wonderful" app installed
on their 9X workstations, and everytime I poll someone about system crashes,
the commonality between the crashes is that 9 out of 10 times, they had
goldmine
running when the system crashed. And of course, their 3 NT boxes never
crash,
irregardless of software. (read below.)
While people are busy slamming win95/98 for leaking the
resources, it's not win9X thats causing the problem, its an
errant app (or two) that does it... This is why NT seems to run so much
more stable, it provides a "room with padded walls" for every app to run
in, so even if the app commits ritual suicide, or blows itself up, it won't
spray its entrails on the guy in the next cell over. 9X just allows the
apps to do whatever they want, including invading memory allocated by the
operating system itself. If you want stability, you have to watch what
apps are loaded on your machine, and ask yourself wether you really need
them or
not. Alas, if you need to run a crappy application every now and then, or
need utmost resiliency, you will be forced to run any one of the derivs.
of windows NT. (NT4 or 5/2000), and if your requirements (and hardware) are
really
basic and feature stripped, you can get away with using linux, which
will probably never break. (although linux doesnt tolerate suck apps
either, but this is more of a security issue than anything else, and on
a single user box, is very small issue).
The other thing which sucks up GDI/User/Environment memory (that tricky
nonrecoverable stuff) is junk loaded in the system tray. On a 9X box
only the bare minimum to operate should be sitting in the tray. In win98,
use MSCONFIG from the start/run box and then turn off half the
crap that loads in the registry, you'd be amazed at how much faster
the machine runs.
Another sure fire way to blow away tons of GDI/user/etc resources is
the installation of any norton applications, these things are horrible
in terms of destroying a 9X box in the shortest period of time. Kind of
ironic since they pretend that their utilities can fix
things.
-Mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Ross [mailto:dr0ss_at_email.msn.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 3:33 AM
> To: thinkpad_at_cs.utk.edu
> Subject: Re: Is Memory just Memory
>
>
> Me:
>
> > None of these programs will free up "System Resources", just memory
> > (though some claim to!).
>
> Vince:
> >System Resources is usually where the problem lies since I never
> >run out of physical ram, only about 50% of the 320MB on the 770Z and
> 384MB
> >on my desktop is ever used, it's the system resources that are always
> low
> >and nothing else can open afterwards.
>
> Alas, I do not believe there is anything one can do to reclaim those
> resources under
> W9x; the way memory is reclaimed by the programs already mentioned
> exploits a trick in Windows memory management that doesn't have a
> counterpart for system resources. Perhaps W2K is
> better in this regard.
>
> - David R.
>
>
>
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