Strange loss of system resources

[thanatoid]

Hi gang.

Something a little strange is happening.

I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I have
the following lines in system.ini and everything runs fine
(but... see later):

[vcache]
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=524288

(another section)
MinPagingFileSize=204800
MaxPagingFileSize=204800

(I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the 1GB RAM
:-)

Here's the weirdness:

I seem to be running out of system resources all the time and
quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had just 256 MB
of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to about 20% on the
1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have to reboot a few
minutes later.

I use Opera and I have started using FireFox 2.0.0.18 because
Opera crashes a lot with the stupid SWF plugin, although I still
prefer its features and I am very accustomed to it.

If I stay off the web, no problem with sys resources.

Does anyone have any idea WHY this has started happening and
what I can do to fix it?
Any help would be most appreciated, as usual.

t.

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> Hi gang.
>
> Something a little strange is happening.
>
> I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I have
> the following lines in system.ini and everything runs fine
> (but... see later):
>
> [vcache]
> MinFileCache=0
> MaxFileCache=524288
>
> (another section)
> MinPagingFileSize=204800
> MaxPagingFileSize=204800
>
> (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the 1GB RAM
> :-)
>
> Here's the weirdness:

Do some more Googling. System Resources is not dependent on the amount of
ram.
Hopefully you will find which system or progream is using up your System
Resources.
Even desktop icons use System Resources.
>
> I seem to be running out of system resources all the time and
> quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had just 256 MB
> of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to about 20% on the
> 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have to reboot a few
> minutes later.
>
> I use Opera and I have started using FireFox 2.0.0.18 because
> Opera crashes a lot with the stupid SWF plugin, although I still
> prefer its features and I am very accustomed to it.
>
> If I stay off the web, no problem with sys resources.
>
> Does anyone have any idea WHY this has started happening and
> what I can do to fix it?
> Any help would be most appreciated, as usual.
>
> t.

[mm]

On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:28:37 +0800, puzzled > wrote:

>On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 16:05:17 -0700, "Buffalo" > wrote:
>
>>Even desktop icons use System Resources.
>
>Any idea how much? My desktop is almost completely filled with icons (just
>counted - 122 - don't ask!).

I am pretty confused by all this and probably know less each year now
than the year before, for the last few years. But....

First, IIRC the amount for system resources is suprisingly little,
even for the average RAM in 1998.

Second, I thought it used 1K for each icon, but maybe that rounds up
to a whoto a full sector for each. Maybe not.

Anyhow, my suggestion is to rename Desktop where it appears in Windows
Explorer, like to Desktop2, and then create a new empty desktop. I
guess it won't stay empty because those first 4 or so icons will be
there automatically I think, but then see how it runs.

I'll admit it was win3.1, but I had problems because of too many
icons.


Also what I did in win98, was create folders to hold my everyday
icons, and two more folders to hold other ones. For View, I used
large icons, or whatever they call it, like the Control Panel usually
is. One folder was just for infrequent internet stuff. Another for
utilities, etc.. Then I put icons in each folder to point to the
other two. You can make an icon for a specific folder very easily.
Then in the start-up group, among the other programs that run at
start-up, I put another icon (are they called shotcuts?) representing
my everyday folder. This way I had almost nothing in my desktop, but
I suppose it is no more efficient to have 10 icons in a desktop than
to have ten in the everyday folder.

The big advantage were that I only opened one of the other two folders
when I needed something,

and that, even though I run every program that will do it maximized,
I don't have to click on desktop to see the desktop underneath. I
don't have to use my mouse at all, and I rarely use the desktop. I
use these the everyday folder, and once in a while the other two. I
use alt-tab to go from one program to another, and this will also go
to open folders. It made it more like win3.1 also.

[mm]

On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:28:37 +0800, puzzled > wrote:

>On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 16:05:17 -0700, "Buffalo" > wrote:
>
>>Even desktop icons use System Resources.
>
>Any idea how much? My desktop is almost completely filled with icons (just
>counted - 122 - don't ask!).

I am pretty confused by all this and probably know less each year now
than the year before, for the last few years. But....

First, IIRC the amount for system resources is suprisingly little,
even for the average RAM in 1998.

Second, I thought it used 1K for each icon, but maybe that rounds up
to a whoto a full sector for each. Maybe not.

Anyhow, my suggestion is to rename Desktop where it appears in Windows
Explorer, like to Desktop2, and then create a new empty desktop. I
guess it won't stay empty because those first 4 or so icons will be
there automatically I think, but then see how it runs.

I'll admit it was win3.1, but I had problems because of too many
icons.


Also what I did in win98, was create folders to hold my everyday
icons, and two more folders to hold other ones. For View, I used
large icons, or whatever they call it, like the Control Panel usually
is. One folder was just for infrequent internet stuff. Another for
utilities, etc.. Then I put icons in each folder to point to the
other two. You can make an icon for a specific folder very easily.
Then in the start-up group, among the other programs that run at
start-up, I put another icon (are they called shotcuts?) representing
my everyday folder. This way I had almost nothing in my desktop, but
I suppose it is no more efficient to have 10 icons in a desktop than
to have ten in the everyday folder.

The big advantage were that I only opened one of the other two folders
when I needed something,

and that, even though I run every program that will do it maximized,
I don't have to click on desktop to see the desktop underneath. I
don't have to use my mouse at all, and I rarely use the desktop. I
use these the everyday folder, and once in a while the other two. I
use alt-tab to go from one program to another, and this will also go
to open folders. It made it more like win3.1 also.

[puzzled]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 16:05:17 -0700, "Buffalo" > wrote:

>Even desktop icons use System Resources.

Any idea how much? My desktop is almost completely filled with icons (just
counted - 122 - don't ask!).

[puzzled]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 16:05:17 -0700, "Buffalo" > wrote:

>Even desktop icons use System Resources.

Any idea how much? My desktop is almost completely filled with icons (just
counted - 122 - don't ask!).

[mm]

On Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:15:37 -0500, mm >
wrote:

>
>Anyhow, my suggestion is to rename Desktop where it appears in Windows
>Explorer, like to Desktop2, and then create a new empty desktop. I
>guess it won't stay empty because those first 4 or so icons will be
>there automatically I think, but then see how it runs.

Oh, yeah, you probably have to do this in DOS before Windows starts.
I doubt it will let you rename Desktop when windows is running,
although you can get the full file name then.

[mm]

On Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:15:37 -0500, mm >
wrote:

>
>Anyhow, my suggestion is to rename Desktop where it appears in Windows
>Explorer, like to Desktop2, and then create a new empty desktop. I
>guess it won't stay empty because those first 4 or so icons will be
>there automatically I think, but then see how it runs.

Oh, yeah, you probably have to do this in DOS before Windows starts.
I doubt it will let you rename Desktop when windows is running,
although you can get the full file name then.

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> Do some more Googling. System Resources is not dependent on
> the amount of ram.

I am aware of that. I just gave what I thought was pertinent
info - it did NOT happen when I has 256 MB. You /never/ know.

> Hopefully you will find which system or progream is using
> up your System Resources.

I am not running ANYTHING while on the web that I am not running
while NOT on the web (ie I do not have a virus scanner
permanently on, etc. - and my firewall uses SO little resources
that it's always on even when NOT on the net.

> Even desktop icons use System Resources.

Yes, I know that too, and yesterday I switched them all off
hoping it would help as I was just about to finsih a large DL.
It may or may not have helped but I managed to finish the DL,
albeit with 'system' fonts on the screen.

Anyway, I certainly appreciate you being the only person in the
group to address my question so far (instead of hijacking the
thread ;-[ )- even though it simply seems that for some stupid
reason browsers use a lot of system resources. WHY they use more
NOW than before I don't know.

I guess that is ONE advantage I will give XP - supposedly this
system resources thing was worked out in it. Supposedly.

Thanks,
t.

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> Do some more Googling. System Resources is not dependent on
> the amount of ram.

I am aware of that. I just gave what I thought was pertinent
info - it did NOT happen when I has 256 MB. You /never/ know.

> Hopefully you will find which system or progream is using
> up your System Resources.

I am not running ANYTHING while on the web that I am not running
while NOT on the web (ie I do not have a virus scanner
permanently on, etc. - and my firewall uses SO little resources
that it's always on even when NOT on the net.

> Even desktop icons use System Resources.

Yes, I know that too, and yesterday I switched them all off
hoping it would help as I was just about to finsih a large DL.
It may or may not have helped but I managed to finish the DL,
albeit with 'system' fonts on the screen.

Anyway, I certainly appreciate you being the only person in the
group to address my question so far (instead of hijacking the
thread ;-[ )- even though it simply seems that for some stupid
reason browsers use a lot of system resources. WHY they use more
NOW than before I don't know.

I guess that is ONE advantage I will give XP - supposedly this
system resources thing was worked out in it. Supposedly.

Thanks,
t.

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "Buffalo" > wrote in
> :
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> Do some more Googling. System Resources is not dependent on
>> the amount of ram.
>
> I am aware of that. I just gave what I thought was pertinent
> info - it did NOT happen when I has 256 MB. You /never/ know.


I thought you probably knew that but I mentioned it anyways.
Interesting that it did not happen with 256MB. Perhaps one of the Win98
Gurus will have an explanation.
Did you have FireFox when you only had 256MB?

>
>> Hopefully you will find which system or progream is using
>> up your System Resources.
>
> I am not running ANYTHING while on the web that I am not running
> while NOT on the web (ie I do not have a virus scanner
> permanently on, etc. - and my firewall uses SO little resources
> that it's always on even when NOT on the net.


While working offline, turn your anti-virus off. (Process of elimination)
Does your anti-virus automatically check for updates? That could be using
system resources also??? Just guessing.

>
>> Even desktop icons use System Resources.
>
> Yes, I know that too, and yesterday I switched them all off
> hoping it would help as I was just about to finsih a large DL.
> It may or may not have helped but I managed to finish the DL,
> albeit with 'system' fonts on the screen.
>
> Anyway, I certainly appreciate you being the only person in the
> group to address my question so far (instead of hijacking the
> thread ;-[ )- even though it simply seems that for some stupid
> reason browsers use a lot of system resources. WHY they use more
> NOW than before I don't know.
>
> I guess that is ONE advantage I will give XP - supposedly this
> system resources thing was worked out in it. Supposedly.
>
> Thanks,
> t.

If I hear of a program that tracks the use of system resources, I will post
back. (use and which program uses them)

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "Buffalo" > wrote in
> :
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> Do some more Googling. System Resources is not dependent on
>> the amount of ram.
>
> I am aware of that. I just gave what I thought was pertinent
> info - it did NOT happen when I has 256 MB. You /never/ know.


I thought you probably knew that but I mentioned it anyways.
Interesting that it did not happen with 256MB. Perhaps one of the Win98
Gurus will have an explanation.
Did you have FireFox when you only had 256MB?

>
>> Hopefully you will find which system or progream is using
>> up your System Resources.
>
> I am not running ANYTHING while on the web that I am not running
> while NOT on the web (ie I do not have a virus scanner
> permanently on, etc. - and my firewall uses SO little resources
> that it's always on even when NOT on the net.


While working offline, turn your anti-virus off. (Process of elimination)
Does your anti-virus automatically check for updates? That could be using
system resources also??? Just guessing.

>
>> Even desktop icons use System Resources.
>
> Yes, I know that too, and yesterday I switched them all off
> hoping it would help as I was just about to finsih a large DL.
> It may or may not have helped but I managed to finish the DL,
> albeit with 'system' fonts on the screen.
>
> Anyway, I certainly appreciate you being the only person in the
> group to address my question so far (instead of hijacking the
> thread ;-[ )- even though it simply seems that for some stupid
> reason browsers use a lot of system resources. WHY they use more
> NOW than before I don't know.
>
> I guess that is ONE advantage I will give XP - supposedly this
> system resources thing was worked out in it. Supposedly.
>
> Thanks,
> t.

If I hear of a program that tracks the use of system resources, I will post
back. (use and which program uses them)

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

> Perhaps one of the Win98 Gurus will have an explanation.

Most of them are not speaking to me since I use 98SE LITE.
Satan's spawn!

> Did you have FireFox when you only had 256MB?

No, I only installed it because some stupid eBay box wasn't
showing up in Opera (I still think Opera is better, I HATE the
FF cache system with no extensions - although it does save FLV's
just as nicely as Opera). But the same thing was happening when
I just used Opera.

I guess now that I have 1GB of RAM, an ADSL connection and a
2GHz CPU I have been forgetting about my favorite browser,
OffByOne, which has NO cache and takes up virtually no
resources. My bad.

OTOH, I have been forced to use Opera or FF because I have been
forced to access sites which use Java, Flash, etc. Time to put a
stop to that. I wish eBay worked in OB1.

<SNIP>

> While working offline, turn your anti-virus off.

I ONLY ever do on-demand scans of the directory where I've dl'd
stuff which could be potentially harmful. NOTHING related to the
AV (ESET NOD32) is running otherwise. Not even the Kernel or
control center.

> (Process
> of elimination) Does your anti-virus automatically check
> for updates? That could be using system resources also???
> Just guessing.

No, I don't let my computer do ANYTHING automatically.

<SNIP>

> If I hear of a program that tracks the use of system
> resources, I will post back. (use and which program uses
> them)

I Googled some more yesterday and found something interesting.
While there appears to be NO way of freeing up the stupid 64KB
of sys resources allocation, there is a registry entry which MAY
help, although it has to do with unloading DLL's - but it was
mentioned in a sys resources thread somewhere. I haven't gotten
around to putting it in yet. FYI, it's:

Use Regedit to edit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\exp
lorer
Add the DWORD value named: AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to 1

It seems to be fairly useless for 2000 and up but some in the
thread said it's good in 9x.

But yesterday I did OK. It's really not a big deal, just a
little annoying, and it doesn't happen ALL the time.

Thanks again for your help.
t.

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

> Perhaps one of the Win98 Gurus will have an explanation.

Most of them are not speaking to me since I use 98SE LITE.
Satan's spawn!

> Did you have FireFox when you only had 256MB?

No, I only installed it because some stupid eBay box wasn't
showing up in Opera (I still think Opera is better, I HATE the
FF cache system with no extensions - although it does save FLV's
just as nicely as Opera). But the same thing was happening when
I just used Opera.

I guess now that I have 1GB of RAM, an ADSL connection and a
2GHz CPU I have been forgetting about my favorite browser,
OffByOne, which has NO cache and takes up virtually no
resources. My bad.

OTOH, I have been forced to use Opera or FF because I have been
forced to access sites which use Java, Flash, etc. Time to put a
stop to that. I wish eBay worked in OB1.

<SNIP>

> While working offline, turn your anti-virus off.

I ONLY ever do on-demand scans of the directory where I've dl'd
stuff which could be potentially harmful. NOTHING related to the
AV (ESET NOD32) is running otherwise. Not even the Kernel or
control center.

> (Process
> of elimination) Does your anti-virus automatically check
> for updates? That could be using system resources also???
> Just guessing.

No, I don't let my computer do ANYTHING automatically.

<SNIP>

> If I hear of a program that tracks the use of system
> resources, I will post back. (use and which program uses
> them)

I Googled some more yesterday and found something interesting.
While there appears to be NO way of freeing up the stupid 64KB
of sys resources allocation, there is a registry entry which MAY
help, although it has to do with unloading DLL's - but it was
mentioned in a sys resources thread somewhere. I haven't gotten
around to putting it in yet. FYI, it's:

Use Regedit to edit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\exp
lorer
Add the DWORD value named: AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to 1

It seems to be fairly useless for 2000 and up but some in the
thread said it's good in 9x.

But yesterday I did OK. It's really not a big deal, just a
little annoying, and it doesn't happen ALL the time.

Thanks again for your help.
t.

[Franc Zabkar]

On 07 Jan 2009 21:29:19 GMT, thanatoid > put
finger to keyboard and composed:

>I use Opera and I have started using FireFox 2.0.0.18 because
>Opera crashes a lot with the stupid SWF plugin, although I still
>prefer its features and I am very accustomed to it.
>
>If I stay off the web, no problem with sys resources.
>
>Does anyone have any idea WHY this has started happening and
>what I can do to fix it?
>Any help would be most appreciated, as usual.
>
>t.

Opera 9.5x has had severe bugs involving system resources. I don't
know about Firefox, though.

http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ea2c64185e3837ea?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ac3c0109a6de43de?dmode=source

I'm still using Opera 9.27 without too many problems, although I have
disabled SWF.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

[Franc Zabkar]

On 07 Jan 2009 21:29:19 GMT, thanatoid > put
finger to keyboard and composed:

>I use Opera and I have started using FireFox 2.0.0.18 because
>Opera crashes a lot with the stupid SWF plugin, although I still
>prefer its features and I am very accustomed to it.
>
>If I stay off the web, no problem with sys resources.
>
>Does anyone have any idea WHY this has started happening and
>what I can do to fix it?
>Any help would be most appreciated, as usual.
>
>t.

Opera 9.5x has had severe bugs involving system resources. I don't
know about Firefox, though.

http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ea2c64185e3837ea?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ac3c0109a6de43de?dmode=source

I'm still using Opera 9.27 without too many problems, although I have
disabled SWF.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "Buffalo" > wrote in
> :
>
>> Perhaps one of the Win98 Gurus will have an explanation.
>
> Most of them are not speaking to me since I use 98SE LITE.
> Satan's spawn!
>
>> Did you have FireFox when you only had 256MB?
>
> No, I only installed it because some stupid eBay box wasn't
> showing up in Opera (I still think Opera is better, I HATE the
> FF cache system with no extensions - although it does save FLV's
> just as nicely as Opera). But the same thing was happening when
> I just used Opera.
>
> I guess now that I have 1GB of RAM, an ADSL connection and a
> 2GHz CPU I have been forgetting about my favorite browser,
> OffByOne, which has NO cache and takes up virtually no
> resources. My bad.
>
> OTOH, I have been forced to use Opera or FF because I have been
> forced to access sites which use Java, Flash, etc. Time to put a
> stop to that. I wish eBay worked in OB1.
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> While working offline, turn your anti-virus off.
>
> I ONLY ever do on-demand scans of the directory where I've dl'd
> stuff which could be potentially harmful. NOTHING related to the
> AV (ESET NOD32) is running otherwise. Not even the Kernel or
> control center.
>
>> (Process
>> of elimination) Does your anti-virus automatically check
>> for updates? That could be using system resources also???
>> Just guessing.
>
> No, I don't let my computer do ANYTHING automatically.
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> If I hear of a program that tracks the use of system
>> resources, I will post back. (use and which program uses
>> them)
>
> I Googled some more yesterday and found something interesting.
> While there appears to be NO way of freeing up the stupid 64KB
> of sys resources allocation, there is a registry entry which MAY
> help, although it has to do with unloading DLL's - but it was
> mentioned in a sys resources thread somewhere. I haven't gotten
> around to putting it in yet. FYI, it's:
>
> Use Regedit to edit:
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\exp
> lorer
> Add the DWORD value named: AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to 1
>
> It seems to be fairly useless for 2000 and up but some in the
> thread said it's good in 9x.
>
> But yesterday I did OK. It's really not a big deal, just a
> little annoying, and it doesn't happen ALL the time.
>
> Thanks again for your help.
> t.

I found this : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300059

Perhaps doing the troubleshooting mentioned in the middle of the paragraph
below may give some insight.
I couldn't find much else.


"How to Use the System Resource Meter Tool
You can use the System Resource Meter tool by using either of the following
methods:
a.. Click Start, click Run, type: rsrcmtr.exe, and then click OK.
a.. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System
Tools, and then click Resource Meter.
When you run the System Resource Meter tool, an icon is placed in the system
tray. You can double-click the icon to open a window that displays the
percentage of free resources for the system, user, and GDI resources. Record
the amount of available system resources that you have before you start a
program, and then record the amount of available resources while you are
running the program. Then, record the amount of the available resources
after you close the program. If you open a program and it consumes system
resources that change the color of your system tray icon to yellow or red,
the program is consuming a high percentage of your system resources. You can
attempt to run your computer in a clean-boot operation, run the System
Resource Meter tool, and then run that particular program to determine if it
is that program or if it is a combination of programs running on your
computer that create this problem.

For additional information about how to clean boot your computer, click the
article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
267288 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/267288/EN-US/ ) How to Perform a
Clean Boot in Windows Millennium Edition
192926 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192926/EN-US/ ) How to Perform
Clean-Boot Troubleshooting for Windows 98 "

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "Buffalo" > wrote in
> :
>
>> Perhaps one of the Win98 Gurus will have an explanation.
>
> Most of them are not speaking to me since I use 98SE LITE.
> Satan's spawn!
>
>> Did you have FireFox when you only had 256MB?
>
> No, I only installed it because some stupid eBay box wasn't
> showing up in Opera (I still think Opera is better, I HATE the
> FF cache system with no extensions - although it does save FLV's
> just as nicely as Opera). But the same thing was happening when
> I just used Opera.
>
> I guess now that I have 1GB of RAM, an ADSL connection and a
> 2GHz CPU I have been forgetting about my favorite browser,
> OffByOne, which has NO cache and takes up virtually no
> resources. My bad.
>
> OTOH, I have been forced to use Opera or FF because I have been
> forced to access sites which use Java, Flash, etc. Time to put a
> stop to that. I wish eBay worked in OB1.
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> While working offline, turn your anti-virus off.
>
> I ONLY ever do on-demand scans of the directory where I've dl'd
> stuff which could be potentially harmful. NOTHING related to the
> AV (ESET NOD32) is running otherwise. Not even the Kernel or
> control center.
>
>> (Process
>> of elimination) Does your anti-virus automatically check
>> for updates? That could be using system resources also???
>> Just guessing.
>
> No, I don't let my computer do ANYTHING automatically.
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> If I hear of a program that tracks the use of system
>> resources, I will post back. (use and which program uses
>> them)
>
> I Googled some more yesterday and found something interesting.
> While there appears to be NO way of freeing up the stupid 64KB
> of sys resources allocation, there is a registry entry which MAY
> help, although it has to do with unloading DLL's - but it was
> mentioned in a sys resources thread somewhere. I haven't gotten
> around to putting it in yet. FYI, it's:
>
> Use Regedit to edit:
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\exp
> lorer
> Add the DWORD value named: AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to 1
>
> It seems to be fairly useless for 2000 and up but some in the
> thread said it's good in 9x.
>
> But yesterday I did OK. It's really not a big deal, just a
> little annoying, and it doesn't happen ALL the time.
>
> Thanks again for your help.
> t.

I found this : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300059

Perhaps doing the troubleshooting mentioned in the middle of the paragraph
below may give some insight.
I couldn't find much else.


"How to Use the System Resource Meter Tool
You can use the System Resource Meter tool by using either of the following
methods:
a.. Click Start, click Run, type: rsrcmtr.exe, and then click OK.
a.. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System
Tools, and then click Resource Meter.
When you run the System Resource Meter tool, an icon is placed in the system
tray. You can double-click the icon to open a window that displays the
percentage of free resources for the system, user, and GDI resources. Record
the amount of available system resources that you have before you start a
program, and then record the amount of available resources while you are
running the program. Then, record the amount of the available resources
after you close the program. If you open a program and it consumes system
resources that change the color of your system tray icon to yellow or red,
the program is consuming a high percentage of your system resources. You can
attempt to run your computer in a clean-boot operation, run the System
Resource Meter tool, and then run that particular program to determine if it
is that program or if it is a combination of programs running on your
computer that create this problem.

For additional information about how to clean boot your computer, click the
article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
267288 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/267288/EN-US/ ) How to Perform a
Clean Boot in Windows Millennium Edition
192926 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192926/EN-US/ ) How to Perform
Clean-Boot Troubleshooting for Windows 98 "

[PCR]

thanatoid wrote:
| Hi gang.
|
| Something a little strange is happening.
|
| I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I have
| the following lines in system.ini and everything runs fine
| (but... see later):
|
| [vcache]
| MinFileCache=0
| MaxFileCache=524288

That should be fine.

| (another section)
| MinPagingFileSize=204800
| MaxPagingFileSize=204800

Setting a max size for the swap file could get you in deep trouble with
certain MVPs! Better not let Harper see this in particular! However, I
doubt it affects resources.

| (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the 1GB RAM

If the swap file isn't being used very often, consider...

"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
....in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section.

But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources. And I can't quite
recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe it reverts swap file handling
back to Win95 methods, which I think spent less time anticipating the
size to make the swap file. This is probably what you want to do--
instead of setting the max/min to the same number!

| :-)
|
| Here's the weirdness:
|
| I seem to be running out of system resources all the time and
| quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had just 256 MB
| of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to about 20% on the
| 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have to reboot a few
| minutes later.

Does it happen just by connecting to the WEB (i.e., you've clicked your
connectoid, thanatoid)-- or do you have to do something like NG
activity, browsing, or downloading? Maybe...

Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup
tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as
well take "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at least
have it display

(a) Swap file in use.
(b) Swap file size.
(c) Swappable memory.
(d) Unused physical memory.
(e) Allocated memory.
(f) Disk cache size.
(g) Locked memory
(h) Other memory
(i) Kernel Processor Usage
(j) Kernel Threads

Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache Size
before/after the problem begins.

| I use Opera and I have started using FireFox 2.0.0.18 because
| Opera crashes a lot with the stupid SWF plugin, although I still
| prefer its features and I am very accustomed to it.
|
| If I stay off the web, no problem with sys resources.
|
| Does anyone have any idea WHY this has started happening and
| what I can do to fix it?
| Any help would be most appreciated, as usual.

Here is what I always post about resources...

Generally, if you've got any Resources at all, you've got enough (said
Harper or Martell). This is because it won't blow, until Resources are
zero. Then, you get an out of memory error (no matter how much RAM
you've got).

Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low they get. A
reboot would clear it, but, obviously, it's better to cleanup your
Startup Group. Do you have "Resource Meter" in START... System Tools?
If not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove
Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System
Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take "System Monitor", too.

The meter will show three figures: System, User & GDI. System is set
to the lower of the others. GDI, I take to be the province of one's
Display Adapter & out of one's control, except by prayer maybe. I know
my GDI resources went up after switching to an LSD monitor. User
Resources can be controlled by limiting the number of programs running.

http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is more than a
combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32, Software Environment, Startup
Programs" and "START, Run, MSConfig, Startup tab". It can even do a
permanent delete from the Startup Group. This is configurable, and one
may maintain multiple configurations of items to include in the Group.

Resources are starting to make me as crazy as TIFs now. I don't fully
understand it, my book ("Windows 98 Secrets" [Livingston/Straub]),
pp.1126-1127, says, Resources are lists (aka heaps). "The lists point
to areas of memory where user interface elements (and other items)
are stored -- things like dialog boxes, windows, and so on." From that,
I divine these are lists of POINTERS to locations in RAM. These lists
have a maximum size, and when they are used up, your resources are gone.
Windows generates an out of memory message upon the next request that
needs space in a list. Even if you have plenty of RAM, the list won't
get any longer. Even though each entry in the 32-bit heap can address
an area of RAM 2 GB away, that also doesn't make the list any longer. I
just don't know how long that list is; the book didn't say. And that's
as close as I've come to understanding Resources.

Windows 3.1x had four 16-bit heaps, three for the User resource & one
for the GDI (Graphic Device Interface). These could only address 64K
each or 256K in total, "to store the objects used in the user interface
and displayed on your screen". In Windows 95/98 the three User heaps
have been combined to one 32-bit heap, capable of addressing 2GB of
RAM. Because some 3.1x applications managed resources lists directly,
instead of through APIs (application program interfaces), Microsoft
retained the 16-bit GDI heap. But some of the elements in it were moved
to the 32-bit heap. Then follows a table of ten Resources elements and
the limits to them in Windows 3.1x compared to Windows 95/98. I see
no contradiction to Livingston/Straub in the article "Core System
Components", on the Windows 98 Resource Kit.

| t.

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[PCR]

thanatoid wrote:
| Hi gang.
|
| Something a little strange is happening.
|
| I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I have
| the following lines in system.ini and everything runs fine
| (but... see later):
|
| [vcache]
| MinFileCache=0
| MaxFileCache=524288

That should be fine.

| (another section)
| MinPagingFileSize=204800
| MaxPagingFileSize=204800

Setting a max size for the swap file could get you in deep trouble with
certain MVPs! Better not let Harper see this in particular! However, I
doubt it affects resources.

| (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the 1GB RAM

If the swap file isn't being used very often, consider...

"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
....in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section.

But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources. And I can't quite
recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe it reverts swap file handling
back to Win95 methods, which I think spent less time anticipating the
size to make the swap file. This is probably what you want to do--
instead of setting the max/min to the same number!

| :-)
|
| Here's the weirdness:
|
| I seem to be running out of system resources all the time and
| quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had just 256 MB
| of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to about 20% on the
| 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have to reboot a few
| minutes later.

Does it happen just by connecting to the WEB (i.e., you've clicked your
connectoid, thanatoid)-- or do you have to do something like NG
activity, browsing, or downloading? Maybe...

Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup
tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as
well take "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at least
have it display

(a) Swap file in use.
(b) Swap file size.
(c) Swappable memory.
(d) Unused physical memory.
(e) Allocated memory.
(f) Disk cache size.
(g) Locked memory
(h) Other memory
(i) Kernel Processor Usage
(j) Kernel Threads

Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache Size
before/after the problem begins.

| I use Opera and I have started using FireFox 2.0.0.18 because
| Opera crashes a lot with the stupid SWF plugin, although I still
| prefer its features and I am very accustomed to it.
|
| If I stay off the web, no problem with sys resources.
|
| Does anyone have any idea WHY this has started happening and
| what I can do to fix it?
| Any help would be most appreciated, as usual.

Here is what I always post about resources...

Generally, if you've got any Resources at all, you've got enough (said
Harper or Martell). This is because it won't blow, until Resources are
zero. Then, you get an out of memory error (no matter how much RAM
you've got).

Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low they get. A
reboot would clear it, but, obviously, it's better to cleanup your
Startup Group. Do you have "Resource Meter" in START... System Tools?
If not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove
Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System
Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take "System Monitor", too.

The meter will show three figures: System, User & GDI. System is set
to the lower of the others. GDI, I take to be the province of one's
Display Adapter & out of one's control, except by prayer maybe. I know
my GDI resources went up after switching to an LSD monitor. User
Resources can be controlled by limiting the number of programs running.

http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is more than a
combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32, Software Environment, Startup
Programs" and "START, Run, MSConfig, Startup tab". It can even do a
permanent delete from the Startup Group. This is configurable, and one
may maintain multiple configurations of items to include in the Group.

Resources are starting to make me as crazy as TIFs now. I don't fully
understand it, my book ("Windows 98 Secrets" [Livingston/Straub]),
pp.1126-1127, says, Resources are lists (aka heaps). "The lists point
to areas of memory where user interface elements (and other items)
are stored -- things like dialog boxes, windows, and so on." From that,
I divine these are lists of POINTERS to locations in RAM. These lists
have a maximum size, and when they are used up, your resources are gone.
Windows generates an out of memory message upon the next request that
needs space in a list. Even if you have plenty of RAM, the list won't
get any longer. Even though each entry in the 32-bit heap can address
an area of RAM 2 GB away, that also doesn't make the list any longer. I
just don't know how long that list is; the book didn't say. And that's
as close as I've come to understanding Resources.

Windows 3.1x had four 16-bit heaps, three for the User resource & one
for the GDI (Graphic Device Interface). These could only address 64K
each or 256K in total, "to store the objects used in the user interface
and displayed on your screen". In Windows 95/98 the three User heaps
have been combined to one 32-bit heap, capable of addressing 2GB of
RAM. Because some 3.1x applications managed resources lists directly,
instead of through APIs (application program interfaces), Microsoft
retained the 16-bit GDI heap. But some of the elements in it were moved
to the 32-bit heap. Then follows a table of ten Resources elements and
the limits to them in Windows 3.1x compared to Windows 95/98. I see
no contradiction to Livingston/Straub in the article "Core System
Components", on the Windows 98 Resource Kit.

| t.

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> I found this : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300059
>
> Perhaps doing the troubleshooting mentioned in the middle
> of the paragraph below may give some insight.
> I couldn't find much else.

<SNIP>

Well, it's certainly very nice of you to look up stuff like that
for someone, thank you.

I am aware of using that (or another monitoring) program and
checking resources (or RAM) use by programs one by one and
finding the ugly beast causing the problems, but to tell you the
honest truth, I am just /too damn lazy/ to go through the
process. If I got crashes every 3 minutes I might, but basically
everything runs actually better than it should.

Thanks again.

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> I found this : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300059
>
> Perhaps doing the troubleshooting mentioned in the middle
> of the paragraph below may give some insight.
> I couldn't find much else.

<SNIP>

Well, it's certainly very nice of you to look up stuff like that
for someone, thank you.

I am aware of using that (or another monitoring) program and
checking resources (or RAM) use by programs one by one and
finding the ugly beast causing the problems, but to tell you the
honest truth, I am just /too damn lazy/ to go through the
process. If I got crashes every 3 minutes I might, but basically
everything runs actually better than it should.

Thanks again.

[thanatoid]

Franc Zabkar > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> Opera 9.5x has had severe bugs involving system resources.
> I don't know about Firefox, though.
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ea2c64185e3
> 837ea?dmode=source
> http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ac3c0109a6d
> e43de?dmode=source
>
> I'm still using Opera 9.27 without too many problems,
> although I have disabled SWF.

Nice to hear from you again, Franc, I hope you've been well.

Yes, I have noticed that even when I was using 7.23 it caused a
lot of RAM loss. The same thing seems to happen now, I am using
ver. 8.01.

I thought about using 9.* but now I am actually thinking about
going back to 7.23.

I still think Opera is the best-designed browser from the user's
customizing/flexibility (does ANY other browser have a zoom
function? IE doesn't count, just in case IT does! :-) viewpoint
but it does seem to suffer from some bad coding. The SFW plugins
have always crashed it, and other things too. It does have the
nice "come back to where you were" restart feature (but it
usually just immediately crashes again!) and it does eat a lot
of resources.

I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of them)
but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with images" as
7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT was VERY different
from 7.23 as well. I find it really peculiar that they change
the appearance and options and functionality so much... Some day
I might try 5.12... When it's a slow day... But next time I do
an Acronis restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
/really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be enough,
FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its structural/directory
design is MOST unpleasant.

And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or forward is
just ///unbelievable///.

Regards.

[thanatoid]

Franc Zabkar > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> Opera 9.5x has had severe bugs involving system resources.
> I don't know about Firefox, though.
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ea2c64185e3
> 837ea?dmode=source
> http://groups.google.com/group/opera.general/msg/ac3c0109a6d
> e43de?dmode=source
>
> I'm still using Opera 9.27 without too many problems,
> although I have disabled SWF.

Nice to hear from you again, Franc, I hope you've been well.

Yes, I have noticed that even when I was using 7.23 it caused a
lot of RAM loss. The same thing seems to happen now, I am using
ver. 8.01.

I thought about using 9.* but now I am actually thinking about
going back to 7.23.

I still think Opera is the best-designed browser from the user's
customizing/flexibility (does ANY other browser have a zoom
function? IE doesn't count, just in case IT does! :-) viewpoint
but it does seem to suffer from some bad coding. The SFW plugins
have always crashed it, and other things too. It does have the
nice "come back to where you were" restart feature (but it
usually just immediately crashes again!) and it does eat a lot
of resources.

I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of them)
but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with images" as
7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT was VERY different
from 7.23 as well. I find it really peculiar that they change
the appearance and options and functionality so much... Some day
I might try 5.12... When it's a slow day... But next time I do
an Acronis restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
/really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be enough,
FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its structural/directory
design is MOST unpleasant.

And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or forward is
just ///unbelievable///.

Regards.

[thanatoid]

"PCR" > wrote in
:

Top-posted intro:
WOW... Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Really nice of
you.

> thanatoid wrote:
>| Hi gang.
>|
>| Something a little strange is happening.
>|
>| I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I
>| have the following lines in system.ini and everything runs
>| fine (but... see later):
>|
>| [vcache]
>| MinFileCache=0
>| MaxFileCache=524288
>
> That should be fine.
>
>| (another section)
>| MinPagingFileSize=204800
>| MaxPagingFileSize=204800
>
> Setting a max size for the swap file could get you in deep
> trouble with certain MVPs! Better not let Harper see this
> in particular! However, I doubt it affects resources.

No, it doesn't, I was just describing the sys setup. The damn
resources have 64K and that's that. And apparently NO program
(except Ctl-Alt-Del) to free them up. SIGH.

>| (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the
>| 1GB RAM
>
> If the swap file isn't being used very often, consider...
>
> "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
> ...in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section.

I have that line in there but I didn't think it was worth
mentioning. I don't know if THAT accounts for the swap file not
being used at all, or whether it's the 1GB of RAM, but whatever.

> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources. And
> I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe it
> reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods, which I
> think spent less time anticipating the size to make the
> swap file. This is probably what you want to do-- instead
> of setting the max/min to the same number!

I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about 2.5
(this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it anyway :-)
, ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of some habits.

And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way to set
it up doesn't help either!

>| Here's the weirdness:
>|
>| I seem to be running out of system resources all the time
>| and quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had
>| just 256 MB of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to
>| about 20% on the 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have
>| to reboot a few minutes later.
>
> Does it happen just by connecting to the WEB (i.e., you've
> clicked your connectoid, thanatoid)-- or do you have to do
> something like NG activity, browsing, or downloading?
> Maybe...

No, only the web, which is why after "sleeping" on it I have
decided that it must be the Opera and FFox browsers... See my
reply to Franc for more musings on browsers...

> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools,
> check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
> "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at
> least have it display
>
> (a) Swap file in use.
> (b) Swap file size.
> (c) Swappable memory.
> (d) Unused physical memory.
> (e) Allocated memory.
> (f) Disk cache size.
> (g) Locked memory
> (h) Other memory
> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
> (j) Kernel Threads
>
> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
> Size before/after the problem begins.

I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much trouble
describing the procedure, but I don't think I can muster up the
patience to go through such a process. Also, I have played with
System Monitor and I find it 50% mystifying and 50% annoying. I
just LOVE it when you click the ? on "page discards" and it
tells you "shows page discards", or something. How f*g helpful.

So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.

<SNIP>

> Here is what I always post about resources...
>
> Generally, if you've got any Resources at all, you've got
> enough (said Harper or Martell). This is because it won't
> blow, until Resources are zero. Then, you get an out of
> memory error (no matter how much RAM you've got).

Yes, I sort of knew that and I read more about it as well.
I have one of many technicians' favorite tools, a RAM MANAGER!!!

The one I use on this machine is FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40. It's free,
and works on 9x-XP. (Maybe Vista, although WHO CARES ;-)

Leaving aside the endless discussion of whether its basic
functionality is of /any/ use to anyone whatsoever, it does have
ONE feature which I think /anyone/ will agree is useful... You
can set it to warn you when the damn System Resources fall below
a certain percentage. In fact, that's the only reason I know
that's what's been happening, other than system fonts all over
the screen and no icons within the Alt-Tab switching...

> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
> they get. A reboot would clear it, but, obviously, it's
> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have "Resource
> Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it from
> "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs,
> Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System
> Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take "System
> Monitor", too.

Aarggh! ;-)

Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and 77%. Not
bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but I haven't
gotten around to going to a site with it yet (trying to find the
link as I write this!). Not bad.

(A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There were NO
images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone through.)

> The meter will show three figures: System, User & GDI.
> System is set to the lower of the others. GDI, I take to be
> the province of one's Display Adapter & out of one's
> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
> went up after switching to an LSD

ahem...

> monitor.

Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of anti-LCD
monitor information.
Then again, everybody uses XP and Vista, so...

> User Resources
> can be controlled by limiting the number of programs
> running.
>
> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32, Software
> Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run, MSConfig,
> Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete from the
> Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may maintain
> multiple configurations of items to include in the Group.

I use IARSN's TaskInfo 2000, and have been for years. The
freeware version is better than the paid version! Anyway, it's
great at showing RAM used and dozens of other things, and it
will also kill programs that don't show up or won't die with
TaskManager.

For startup, I have StartUp Changer 2000, and my startup is VERY
conservative. After a boot up, doing nothing, I have 80-90& (I
forget exactly) in all 3 Sys Resources.

> Resources are starting to make me as crazy as TIFs now. I
> don't fully understand it, my book ("Windows 98 Secrets"
> [Livingston/Straub]), pp.1126-1127, says, Resources are
> lists (aka heaps). "The lists point to areas of memory
> where user interface elements (and other items) are stored
> -- things like dialog boxes, windows, and so on." From
> that, I divine these are lists of POINTERS to locations in
> RAM. These lists have a maximum size, and when they are
> used up, your resources are gone. Windows generates an out
> of memory message upon the next request that needs space in
> a list. Even if you have plenty of RAM, the list won't get
> any longer. Even though each entry in the 32-bit heap can
> address an area of RAM 2 GB away, that also doesn't make
> the list any longer. I just don't know how long that list
> is; the book didn't say. And that's as close as I've come
> to understanding Resources.

Yes, I love these explanations. /Generally/ speaking, I have
found that if you read something incomprehensible over again, it
makes a little more sense every time - I found this with
literature as well as technical stuff. So If I read the above 5
times I( would probably understand it.

> Windows 3.1x had four 16-bit heaps, three for the User
> resource & one for the GDI (Graphic Device Interface).
> These could only address 64K each or 256K in total, "to
> store the objects used in the user interface and displayed
> on your screen". In Windows 95/98 the three User heaps have
> been combined to one 32-bit heap, capable of addressing 2GB
> of RAM. Because some 3.1x applications managed resources
> lists directly, instead of through APIs (application
> program interfaces), Microsoft retained the 16-bit GDI
> heap. But some of the elements in it were moved to the
> 32-bit heap. Then follows a table of ten Resources elements
> and the limits to them in Windows 3.1x compared to Windows
> 95/98. I see no contradiction to Livingston/Straub in the
> article "Core System Components", on the Windows 98
> Resource Kit.

Where's my Advil bottle...

Thanks again!
t.

[thanatoid]

"PCR" > wrote in
:

Top-posted intro:
WOW... Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Really nice of
you.

> thanatoid wrote:
>| Hi gang.
>|
>| Something a little strange is happening.
>|
>| I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I
>| have the following lines in system.ini and everything runs
>| fine (but... see later):
>|
>| [vcache]
>| MinFileCache=0
>| MaxFileCache=524288
>
> That should be fine.
>
>| (another section)
>| MinPagingFileSize=204800
>| MaxPagingFileSize=204800
>
> Setting a max size for the swap file could get you in deep
> trouble with certain MVPs! Better not let Harper see this
> in particular! However, I doubt it affects resources.

No, it doesn't, I was just describing the sys setup. The damn
resources have 64K and that's that. And apparently NO program
(except Ctl-Alt-Del) to free them up. SIGH.

>| (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the
>| 1GB RAM
>
> If the swap file isn't being used very often, consider...
>
> "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
> ...in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section.

I have that line in there but I didn't think it was worth
mentioning. I don't know if THAT accounts for the swap file not
being used at all, or whether it's the 1GB of RAM, but whatever.

> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources. And
> I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe it
> reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods, which I
> think spent less time anticipating the size to make the
> swap file. This is probably what you want to do-- instead
> of setting the max/min to the same number!

I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about 2.5
(this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it anyway :-)
, ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of some habits.

And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way to set
it up doesn't help either!

>| Here's the weirdness:
>|
>| I seem to be running out of system resources all the time
>| and quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had
>| just 256 MB of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to
>| about 20% on the 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have
>| to reboot a few minutes later.
>
> Does it happen just by connecting to the WEB (i.e., you've
> clicked your connectoid, thanatoid)-- or do you have to do
> something like NG activity, browsing, or downloading?
> Maybe...

No, only the web, which is why after "sleeping" on it I have
decided that it must be the Opera and FFox browsers... See my
reply to Franc for more musings on browsers...

> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools,
> check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
> "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at
> least have it display
>
> (a) Swap file in use.
> (b) Swap file size.
> (c) Swappable memory.
> (d) Unused physical memory.
> (e) Allocated memory.
> (f) Disk cache size.
> (g) Locked memory
> (h) Other memory
> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
> (j) Kernel Threads
>
> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
> Size before/after the problem begins.

I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much trouble
describing the procedure, but I don't think I can muster up the
patience to go through such a process. Also, I have played with
System Monitor and I find it 50% mystifying and 50% annoying. I
just LOVE it when you click the ? on "page discards" and it
tells you "shows page discards", or something. How f*g helpful.

So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.

<SNIP>

> Here is what I always post about resources...
>
> Generally, if you've got any Resources at all, you've got
> enough (said Harper or Martell). This is because it won't
> blow, until Resources are zero. Then, you get an out of
> memory error (no matter how much RAM you've got).

Yes, I sort of knew that and I read more about it as well.
I have one of many technicians' favorite tools, a RAM MANAGER!!!

The one I use on this machine is FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40. It's free,
and works on 9x-XP. (Maybe Vista, although WHO CARES ;-)

Leaving aside the endless discussion of whether its basic
functionality is of /any/ use to anyone whatsoever, it does have
ONE feature which I think /anyone/ will agree is useful... You
can set it to warn you when the damn System Resources fall below
a certain percentage. In fact, that's the only reason I know
that's what's been happening, other than system fonts all over
the screen and no icons within the Alt-Tab switching...

> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
> they get. A reboot would clear it, but, obviously, it's
> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have "Resource
> Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it from
> "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs,
> Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System
> Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take "System
> Monitor", too.

Aarggh! ;-)

Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and 77%. Not
bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but I haven't
gotten around to going to a site with it yet (trying to find the
link as I write this!). Not bad.

(A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There were NO
images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone through.)

> The meter will show three figures: System, User & GDI.
> System is set to the lower of the others. GDI, I take to be
> the province of one's Display Adapter & out of one's
> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
> went up after switching to an LSD

ahem...

> monitor.

Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of anti-LCD
monitor information.
Then again, everybody uses XP and Vista, so...

> User Resources
> can be controlled by limiting the number of programs
> running.
>
> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32, Software
> Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run, MSConfig,
> Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete from the
> Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may maintain
> multiple configurations of items to include in the Group.

I use IARSN's TaskInfo 2000, and have been for years. The
freeware version is better than the paid version! Anyway, it's
great at showing RAM used and dozens of other things, and it
will also kill programs that don't show up or won't die with
TaskManager.

For startup, I have StartUp Changer 2000, and my startup is VERY
conservative. After a boot up, doing nothing, I have 80-90& (I
forget exactly) in all 3 Sys Resources.

> Resources are starting to make me as crazy as TIFs now. I
> don't fully understand it, my book ("Windows 98 Secrets"
> [Livingston/Straub]), pp.1126-1127, says, Resources are
> lists (aka heaps). "The lists point to areas of memory
> where user interface elements (and other items) are stored
> -- things like dialog boxes, windows, and so on." From
> that, I divine these are lists of POINTERS to locations in
> RAM. These lists have a maximum size, and when they are
> used up, your resources are gone. Windows generates an out
> of memory message upon the next request that needs space in
> a list. Even if you have plenty of RAM, the list won't get
> any longer. Even though each entry in the 32-bit heap can
> address an area of RAM 2 GB away, that also doesn't make
> the list any longer. I just don't know how long that list
> is; the book didn't say. And that's as close as I've come
> to understanding Resources.

Yes, I love these explanations. /Generally/ speaking, I have
found that if you read something incomprehensible over again, it
makes a little more sense every time - I found this with
literature as well as technical stuff. So If I read the above 5
times I( would probably understand it.

> Windows 3.1x had four 16-bit heaps, three for the User
> resource & one for the GDI (Graphic Device Interface).
> These could only address 64K each or 256K in total, "to
> store the objects used in the user interface and displayed
> on your screen". In Windows 95/98 the three User heaps have
> been combined to one 32-bit heap, capable of addressing 2GB
> of RAM. Because some 3.1x applications managed resources
> lists directly, instead of through APIs (application
> program interfaces), Microsoft retained the 16-bit GDI
> heap. But some of the elements in it were moved to the
> 32-bit heap. Then follows a table of ten Resources elements
> and the limits to them in Windows 3.1x compared to Windows
> 95/98. I see no contradiction to Livingston/Straub in the
> article "Core System Components", on the Windows 98
> Resource Kit.

Where's my Advil bottle...

Thanks again!
t.

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> Well, it's certainly very nice of you to look up stuff like that
> for someone, thank you.
>
> I am aware of using that (or another monitoring) program and
> checking resources (or RAM) use by programs one by one and
> finding the ugly beast causing the problems, but to tell you the
> honest truth, I am just /too damn lazy/ to go through the
> process. If I got crashes every 3 minutes I might, but basically
> everything runs actually better than it should.
>
> Thanks again.

Sounds good to me. :)
Buffalo

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> Well, it's certainly very nice of you to look up stuff like that
> for someone, thank you.
>
> I am aware of using that (or another monitoring) program and
> checking resources (or RAM) use by programs one by one and
> finding the ugly beast causing the problems, but to tell you the
> honest truth, I am just /too damn lazy/ to go through the
> process. If I got crashes every 3 minutes I might, but basically
> everything runs actually better than it should.
>
> Thanks again.

Sounds good to me. :)
Buffalo

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "PCR" > wrote in
> :
>
> Top-posted intro:
> WOW... Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Really nice of
> you.
>
Just for grins,
1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0 (This set to one sometimes helped in
game playing)\
3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize.


Try it, it is SO easy to change back. :)
Remember,all 'free ram' programs use ram and resources.
Who knows, one of the above 3 just might help.
Buffalo

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "PCR" > wrote in
> :
>
> Top-posted intro:
> WOW... Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Really nice of
> you.
>
Just for grins,
1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0 (This set to one sometimes helped in
game playing)\
3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize.


Try it, it is SO easy to change back. :)
Remember,all 'free ram' programs use ram and resources.
Who knows, one of the above 3 just might help.
Buffalo

[PCR]

thanatoid wrote:
| "PCR" > wrote in
| :
|
| Top-posted intro:
| WOW... Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Really nice of
| you.

You are welcome.

|> thanatoid wrote:
|>| Hi gang.
|>|
|>| Something a little strange is happening.
|>|
|>| I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I
|>| have the following lines in system.ini and everything runs
|>| fine (but... see later):
|>|
|>| [vcache]
|>| MinFileCache=0
|>| MaxFileCache=524288
|>
|> That should be fine.
|>
|>| (another section)
|>| MinPagingFileSize=204800
|>| MaxPagingFileSize=204800
|>
|> Setting a max size for the swap file could get you in deep
|> trouble with certain MVPs! Better not let Harper see this
|> in particular! However, I doubt it affects resources.
|
| No, it doesn't, I was just describing the sys setup. The damn
| resources have 64K and that's that. And apparently NO program
| (except Ctl-Alt-Del) to free them up. SIGH.

Closing a program with Ctrl-Alt-Del won't necessarily free resources,
because the program may not do its housekeeping regarding the resource
heaps that way. The program needs to tell the system that heap space has
been freed. If a program has hung & cannot be closed normally, possibly
TaskInfo 2000 will get it to close in an orderly manner. I know
EndItAll2 will first send a close request to a hung program. If it still
fails to close, then it will be killed the way Ctrl-Alt-Del kills them.

|>| (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the
|>| 1GB RAM
|>
|> If the swap file isn't being used very often, consider...
|>
|> "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
|> ...in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section.
|
| I have that line in there but I didn't think it was worth
| mentioning. I don't know if THAT accounts for the swap file not
| being used at all, or whether it's the 1GB of RAM, but whatever.

The more RAM, the less chance there will be a need to use the swap file.
Looks like "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" is meant to revert to Win95
determinations as to when to write to the swap file...

• INFO: The Windows 98 PageFile_Call_Async_Manager Service
(223294) - If this entry is absent from System.ini, the default setting
for ConservativeSwapfileUsage is 1 for Windows 95, and 0 (zero) for
Windows 98. When Windows 98 performs asynchronous ...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223294

• 125 tips for Windows 98
(835834) - ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. This could reduce the amount of
disk swapping Windows does, and so speed up your system..
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835834

|> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources. And
|> I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe it
|> reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods, which I
|> think spent less time anticipating the size to make the
|> swap file. This is probably what you want to do-- instead
|> of setting the max/min to the same number!
|
| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about 2.5
| (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it anyway :-)
| , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of some habits.

It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have a horrible
crash that way! That's why I discontinued the practice, myself-- though
it actually is suggested in Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub),
pp.1041-1042! It says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space.
Then, set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x installed RAM. That
was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant to reduce certain swap file
processing activity-- which I guess is re-sizing decision making.

| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way to set
| it up doesn't help either!

Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has suggested.

|>| Here's the weirdness:
|>|
|>| I seem to be running out of system resources all the time
|>| and quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had
|>| just 256 MB of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to
|>| about 20% on the 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have
|>| to reboot a few minutes later.
|>
|> Does it happen just by connecting to the WEB (i.e., you've
|> clicked your connectoid, thanatoid)-- or do you have to do
|> something like NG activity, browsing, or downloading?
|> Maybe...
|
| No, only the web, which is why after "sleeping" on it I have
| decided that it must be the Opera and FFox browsers... See my
| reply to Franc for more musings on browsers...

It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file & disk cache
settings, because they may have an effect on your browser's doings.
Also, check the size of your TIF storage area-- maybe make it larger or
even smaller.

|> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
|> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
|> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools,
|> check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
|> "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at
|> least have it display
|>
|> (a) Swap file in use.
|> (b) Swap file size.
|> (c) Swappable memory.
|> (d) Unused physical memory.
|> (e) Allocated memory.
|> (f) Disk cache size.
|> (g) Locked memory
|> (h) Other memory
|> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
|> (j) Kernel Threads
|>
|> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
|> Size before/after the problem begins.
|
| I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much trouble
| describing the procedure, but I don't think I can muster up the
| patience to go through such a process. Also, I have played with
| System Monitor and I find it 50% mystifying and 50% annoying. I
| just LOVE it when you click the ? on "page discards" and it
| tells you "shows page discards", or something. How f*g helpful.
|
| So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.

That was basically all written long ago, not just now. I suspect disk
cache involvement in the resources problem. I know mine grows very large
when I get a resources crash over a different matter.

| <SNIP>
|
|> Here is what I always post about resources...
|>
|> Generally, if you've got any Resources at all, you've got
|> enough (said Harper or Martell). This is because it won't
|> blow, until Resources are zero. Then, you get an out of
|> memory error (no matter how much RAM you've got).
|
| Yes, I sort of knew that and I read more about it as well.
| I have one of many technicians' favorite tools, a RAM MANAGER!!!
|
| The one I use on this machine is FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40. It's free,
| and works on 9x-XP. (Maybe Vista, although WHO CARES ;-)
|
| Leaving aside the endless discussion of whether its basic
| functionality is of /any/ use to anyone whatsoever, it does have
| ONE feature which I think /anyone/ will agree is useful... You
| can set it to warn you when the damn System Resources fall below
| a certain percentage. In fact, that's the only reason I know
| that's what's been happening, other than system fonts all over
| the screen and no icons within the Alt-Tab switching...

Resource Meter puts up a warning of its own. Unfortunately, sometimes
that warning is hidden under another window! But its icon in the Tray
also will turn red-- if only one can remember to look at it once in a
while!

|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
|> they get. A reboot would clear it, but, obviously, it's
|> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have "Resource
|> Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it from
|> "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs,
|> Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System
|> Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take "System
|> Monitor", too.
|
| Aarggh! ;-)
|
| Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and 77%. Not
| bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but I haven't
| gotten around to going to a site with it yet (trying to find the
| link as I write this!). Not bad.

Those are respectable figures. That 1st figure -- system resources -- is
always set to the lower of the other two. It has no separate meaning of
its own. My own figures right now are 50% System, 50% User, 70% GDI. I'm
online in this NG & have done some browsing.

| (A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
| above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There were NO
| images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone through.)

Keep it up. Check those resources after going to each of your favorite
sites. Do they increase after closing a site? Try closing the browser
too to see whether it will free them.

|> The meter will show three figures: System, User & GDI.
|> System is set to the lower of the others. GDI, I take to be
|> the province of one's Display Adapter & out of one's
|> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
|> went up after switching to an LSD
|
| ahem...

Yikes! I only did that once-- & I didn't like it!

|> monitor.
|
| Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of anti-LCD
| monitor information.

No-- I have more GDI resources with this LCD monitor than I had with its
non-LCD predecessors!

| Then again, everybody uses XP and Vista, so...
|
|> User Resources
|> can be controlled by limiting the number of programs
|> running.
|>
|> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
|> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32, Software
|> Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run, MSConfig,
|> Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete from the
|> Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may maintain
|> multiple configurations of items to include in the Group.
|
| I use IARSN's TaskInfo 2000, and have been for years. The
| freeware version is better than the paid version! Anyway, it's
| great at showing RAM used and dozens of other things, and it
| will also kill programs that don't show up or won't die with
| TaskManager.
|
| For startup, I have StartUp Changer 2000, and my startup is VERY
| conservative. After a boot up, doing nothing, I have 80-90& (I
| forget exactly) in all 3 Sys Resources.

That's good, then. Yea, like me.

|> Resources are starting to make me as crazy as TIFs now. I
|> don't fully understand it, my book ("Windows 98 Secrets"
|> [Livingston/Straub]), pp.1126-1127, says, Resources are
|> lists (aka heaps). "The lists point to areas of memory
|> where user interface elements (and other items) are stored
|> -- things like dialog boxes, windows, and so on." From
|> that, I divine these are lists of POINTERS to locations in
|> RAM. These lists have a maximum size, and when they are
|> used up, your resources are gone. Windows generates an out
|> of memory message upon the next request that needs space in
|> a list. Even if you have plenty of RAM, the list won't get
|> any longer. Even though each entry in the 32-bit heap can
|> address an area of RAM 2 GB away, that also doesn't make
|> the list any longer. I just don't know how long that list
|> is; the book didn't say. And that's as close as I've come
|> to understanding Resources.
|
| Yes, I love these explanations. /Generally/ speaking, I have
| found that if you read something incomprehensible over again, it
| makes a little more sense every time - I found this with
| literature as well as technical stuff. So If I read the above 5
| times I( would probably understand it.

Better to read it in the book. Right, multiple readings are required!

|> Windows 3.1x had four 16-bit heaps, three for the User
|> resource & one for the GDI (Graphic Device Interface).
|> These could only address 64K each or 256K in total, "to
|> store the objects used in the user interface and displayed
|> on your screen". In Windows 95/98 the three User heaps have
|> been combined to one 32-bit heap, capable of addressing 2GB
|> of RAM. Because some 3.1x applications managed resources
|> lists directly, instead of through APIs (application
|> program interfaces), Microsoft retained the 16-bit GDI
|> heap. But some of the elements in it were moved to the
|> 32-bit heap. Then follows a table of ten Resources elements
|> and the limits to them in Windows 3.1x compared to Windows
|> 95/98. I see no contradiction to Livingston/Straub in the
|> article "Core System Components", on the Windows 98
|> Resource Kit.
|
| Where's my Advil bottle...

Understandable. Sounds like only the GDI Resources face a 64K limitation
now. However, the heap or list that comprises the User Resources,
although it can address more RAM for its "elements"-- still has a size
issue. When space runs out for entries in the list (pointers to the
elements)-- one is out of resources!

| Thanks again!
| t.

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[PCR]

thanatoid wrote:
| "PCR" > wrote in
| :
|
| Top-posted intro:
| WOW... Thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Really nice of
| you.

You are welcome.

|> thanatoid wrote:
|>| Hi gang.
|>|
|>| Something a little strange is happening.
|>|
|>| I am running 98SELite on a 2GHz machine with 1GB of RAM. I
|>| have the following lines in system.ini and everything runs
|>| fine (but... see later):
|>|
|>| [vcache]
|>| MinFileCache=0
|>| MaxFileCache=524288
|>
|> That should be fine.
|>
|>| (another section)
|>| MinPagingFileSize=204800
|>| MaxPagingFileSize=204800
|>
|> Setting a max size for the swap file could get you in deep
|> trouble with certain MVPs! Better not let Harper see this
|> in particular! However, I doubt it affects resources.
|
| No, it doesn't, I was just describing the sys setup. The damn
| resources have 64K and that's that. And apparently NO program
| (except Ctl-Alt-Del) to free them up. SIGH.

Closing a program with Ctrl-Alt-Del won't necessarily free resources,
because the program may not do its housekeeping regarding the resource
heaps that way. The program needs to tell the system that heap space has
been freed. If a program has hung & cannot be closed normally, possibly
TaskInfo 2000 will get it to close in an orderly manner. I know
EndItAll2 will first send a close request to a hung program. If it still
fails to close, then it will be killed the way Ctrl-Alt-Del kills them.

|>| (I haven't used ANY of the swap file since I put in the
|>| 1GB RAM
|>
|> If the swap file isn't being used very often, consider...
|>
|> "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
|> ...in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section.
|
| I have that line in there but I didn't think it was worth
| mentioning. I don't know if THAT accounts for the swap file not
| being used at all, or whether it's the 1GB of RAM, but whatever.

The more RAM, the less chance there will be a need to use the swap file.
Looks like "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" is meant to revert to Win95
determinations as to when to write to the swap file...

• INFO: The Windows 98 PageFile_Call_Async_Manager Service
(223294) - If this entry is absent from System.ini, the default setting
for ConservativeSwapfileUsage is 1 for Windows 95, and 0 (zero) for
Windows 98. When Windows 98 performs asynchronous ...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223294

• 125 tips for Windows 98
(835834) - ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. This could reduce the amount of
disk swapping Windows does, and so speed up your system..
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835834

|> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources. And
|> I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe it
|> reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods, which I
|> think spent less time anticipating the size to make the
|> swap file. This is probably what you want to do-- instead
|> of setting the max/min to the same number!
|
| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about 2.5
| (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it anyway :-)
| , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of some habits.

It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have a horrible
crash that way! That's why I discontinued the practice, myself-- though
it actually is suggested in Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub),
pp.1041-1042! It says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space.
Then, set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x installed RAM. That
was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant to reduce certain swap file
processing activity-- which I guess is re-sizing decision making.

| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way to set
| it up doesn't help either!

Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has suggested.

|>| Here's the weirdness:
|>|
|>| I seem to be running out of system resources all the time
|>| and quite rapidly - much more so than when I still had
|>| just 256 MB of RAM. After about ½ hr on the web, I get to
|>| about 20% on the 1st and 3rd resource and sometimes I have
|>| to reboot a few minutes later.
|>
|> Does it happen just by connecting to the WEB (i.e., you've
|> clicked your connectoid, thanatoid)-- or do you have to do
|> something like NG activity, browsing, or downloading?
|> Maybe...
|
| No, only the web, which is why after "sleeping" on it I have
| decided that it must be the Opera and FFox browsers... See my
| reply to Franc for more musings on browsers...

It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file & disk cache
settings, because they may have an effect on your browser's doings.
Also, check the size of your TIF storage area-- maybe make it larger or
even smaller.

|> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
|> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
|> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools,
|> check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
|> "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at
|> least have it display
|>
|> (a) Swap file in use.
|> (b) Swap file size.
|> (c) Swappable memory.
|> (d) Unused physical memory.
|> (e) Allocated memory.
|> (f) Disk cache size.
|> (g) Locked memory
|> (h) Other memory
|> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
|> (j) Kernel Threads
|>
|> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
|> Size before/after the problem begins.
|
| I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much trouble
| describing the procedure, but I don't think I can muster up the
| patience to go through such a process. Also, I have played with
| System Monitor and I find it 50% mystifying and 50% annoying. I
| just LOVE it when you click the ? on "page discards" and it
| tells you "shows page discards", or something. How f*g helpful.
|
| So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.

That was basically all written long ago, not just now. I suspect disk
cache involvement in the resources problem. I know mine grows very large
when I get a resources crash over a different matter.

| <SNIP>
|
|> Here is what I always post about resources...
|>
|> Generally, if you've got any Resources at all, you've got
|> enough (said Harper or Martell). This is because it won't
|> blow, until Resources are zero. Then, you get an out of
|> memory error (no matter how much RAM you've got).
|
| Yes, I sort of knew that and I read more about it as well.
| I have one of many technicians' favorite tools, a RAM MANAGER!!!
|
| The one I use on this machine is FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40. It's free,
| and works on 9x-XP. (Maybe Vista, although WHO CARES ;-)
|
| Leaving aside the endless discussion of whether its basic
| functionality is of /any/ use to anyone whatsoever, it does have
| ONE feature which I think /anyone/ will agree is useful... You
| can set it to warn you when the damn System Resources fall below
| a certain percentage. In fact, that's the only reason I know
| that's what's been happening, other than system fonts all over
| the screen and no icons within the Alt-Tab switching...

Resource Meter puts up a warning of its own. Unfortunately, sometimes
that warning is hidden under another window! But its icon in the Tray
also will turn red-- if only one can remember to look at it once in a
while!

|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
|> they get. A reboot would clear it, but, obviously, it's
|> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have "Resource
|> Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it from
|> "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs,
|> Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System
|> Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take "System
|> Monitor", too.
|
| Aarggh! ;-)
|
| Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and 77%. Not
| bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but I haven't
| gotten around to going to a site with it yet (trying to find the
| link as I write this!). Not bad.

Those are respectable figures. That 1st figure -- system resources -- is
always set to the lower of the other two. It has no separate meaning of
its own. My own figures right now are 50% System, 50% User, 70% GDI. I'm
online in this NG & have done some browsing.

| (A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
| above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There were NO
| images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone through.)

Keep it up. Check those resources after going to each of your favorite
sites. Do they increase after closing a site? Try closing the browser
too to see whether it will free them.

|> The meter will show three figures: System, User & GDI.
|> System is set to the lower of the others. GDI, I take to be
|> the province of one's Display Adapter & out of one's
|> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
|> went up after switching to an LSD
|
| ahem...

Yikes! I only did that once-- & I didn't like it!

|> monitor.
|
| Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of anti-LCD
| monitor information.

No-- I have more GDI resources with this LCD monitor than I had with its
non-LCD predecessors!

| Then again, everybody uses XP and Vista, so...
|
|> User Resources
|> can be controlled by limiting the number of programs
|> running.
|>
|> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
|> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32, Software
|> Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run, MSConfig,
|> Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete from the
|> Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may maintain
|> multiple configurations of items to include in the Group.
|
| I use IARSN's TaskInfo 2000, and have been for years. The
| freeware version is better than the paid version! Anyway, it's
| great at showing RAM used and dozens of other things, and it
| will also kill programs that don't show up or won't die with
| TaskManager.
|
| For startup, I have StartUp Changer 2000, and my startup is VERY
| conservative. After a boot up, doing nothing, I have 80-90& (I
| forget exactly) in all 3 Sys Resources.

That's good, then. Yea, like me.

|> Resources are starting to make me as crazy as TIFs now. I
|> don't fully understand it, my book ("Windows 98 Secrets"
|> [Livingston/Straub]), pp.1126-1127, says, Resources are
|> lists (aka heaps). "The lists point to areas of memory
|> where user interface elements (and other items) are stored
|> -- things like dialog boxes, windows, and so on." From
|> that, I divine these are lists of POINTERS to locations in
|> RAM. These lists have a maximum size, and when they are
|> used up, your resources are gone. Windows generates an out
|> of memory message upon the next request that needs space in
|> a list. Even if you have plenty of RAM, the list won't get
|> any longer. Even though each entry in the 32-bit heap can
|> address an area of RAM 2 GB away, that also doesn't make
|> the list any longer. I just don't know how long that list
|> is; the book didn't say. And that's as close as I've come
|> to understanding Resources.
|
| Yes, I love these explanations. /Generally/ speaking, I have
| found that if you read something incomprehensible over again, it
| makes a little more sense every time - I found this with
| literature as well as technical stuff. So If I read the above 5
| times I( would probably understand it.

Better to read it in the book. Right, multiple readings are required!

|> Windows 3.1x had four 16-bit heaps, three for the User
|> resource & one for the GDI (Graphic Device Interface).
|> These could only address 64K each or 256K in total, "to
|> store the objects used in the user interface and displayed
|> on your screen". In Windows 95/98 the three User heaps have
|> been combined to one 32-bit heap, capable of addressing 2GB
|> of RAM. Because some 3.1x applications managed resources
|> lists directly, instead of through APIs (application
|> program interfaces), Microsoft retained the 16-bit GDI
|> heap. But some of the elements in it were moved to the
|> 32-bit heap. Then follows a table of ten Resources elements
|> and the limits to them in Windows 3.1x compared to Windows
|> 95/98. I see no contradiction to Livingston/Straub in the
|> article "Core System Components", on the Windows 98
|> Resource Kit.
|
| Where's my Advil bottle...

Understandable. Sounds like only the GDI Resources face a 64K limitation
now. However, the heap or list that comprises the User Resources,
although it can address more RAM for its "elements"-- still has a size
issue. When space runs out for entries in the list (pointers to the
elements)-- one is out of resources!

| Thanks again!
| t.

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[Etal]

thanatoid wrote:

> I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of them)
> but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with images" as
> 7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT was VERY different
> from 7.23 as well. I find it really peculiar that they change
> the appearance and options and functionality so much... Some day
> I might try 5.12... When it's a slow day... But next time I do
> an Acronis restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
> /really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be enough,
> FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its structural/directory
> design is MOST unpleasant.
>
> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or forward is
> just ///unbelievable///.

If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
[Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].

--
Nah-ah. I'm staying out of this. ... Now, here's my opinion.

Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

[Etal]

thanatoid wrote:

> I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of them)
> but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with images" as
> 7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT was VERY different
> from 7.23 as well. I find it really peculiar that they change
> the appearance and options and functionality so much... Some day
> I might try 5.12... When it's a slow day... But next time I do
> an Acronis restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
> /really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be enough,
> FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its structural/directory
> design is MOST unpleasant.
>
> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or forward is
> just ///unbelievable///.

If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
[Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].

--
Nah-ah. I'm staying out of this. ... Now, here's my opinion.

Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

[Franc Zabkar]

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:52:13 +0100, Etal
> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>thanatoid wrote:
>
>> I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of them)
>> but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with images" as
>> 7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT was VERY different
>> from 7.23 as well. I find it really peculiar that they change
>> the appearance and options and functionality so much... Some day
>> I might try 5.12... When it's a slow day... But next time I do
>> an Acronis restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
>> /really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be enough,
>> FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its structural/directory
>> design is MOST unpleasant.
>>
>> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or forward is
>> just ///unbelievable///.
>
>If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
>[Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].

Opera has the same shortcut keys:
http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/nomouse/

"Z and Alt+Left go back in history. X and Alt+Right go forward."

Furthermore, it is actually easier in Opera to do this with the mouse.
To go back, hold down the right button on your mouse and then press
the left button. To go forward, hold down the left button and then
press the right button.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

[Franc Zabkar]

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:52:13 +0100, Etal
> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>thanatoid wrote:
>
>> I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of them)
>> but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with images" as
>> 7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT was VERY different
>> from 7.23 as well. I find it really peculiar that they change
>> the appearance and options and functionality so much... Some day
>> I might try 5.12... When it's a slow day... But next time I do
>> an Acronis restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
>> /really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be enough,
>> FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its structural/directory
>> design is MOST unpleasant.
>>
>> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or forward is
>> just ///unbelievable///.
>
>If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
>[Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].

Opera has the same shortcut keys:
http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/nomouse/

"Z and Alt+Left go back in history. X and Alt+Right go forward."

Furthermore, it is actually easier in Opera to do this with the mouse.
To go back, hold down the right button on your mouse and then press
the left button. To go forward, hold down the left button and then
press the right button.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

[thanatoid]

Etal > wrote in
:

> thanatoid wrote:

<SNIP>

>> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or
>> forward is just ///unbelievable///.
>
> If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
> [Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].

Thank you VERY much. Browsers (except Opera) are so elementary,
and I found FFox so simplistic, it never even occurred to me to
look in the help file. Years ago I used to read entire 300 page
manuals before I used a program.

Thanks again.



--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[thanatoid]

Etal > wrote in
:

> thanatoid wrote:

<SNIP>

>> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or
>> forward is just ///unbelievable///.
>
> If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
> [Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].

Thank you VERY much. Browsers (except Opera) are so elementary,
and I found FFox so simplistic, it never even occurred to me to
look in the help file. Years ago I used to read entire 300 page
manuals before I used a program.

Thanks again.



--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> Just for grins,
> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0 (This set to one
> sometimes helped in game playing)\
> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize.
>
> Try it, it is SO easy to change back. :)
> Remember,all 'free ram' programs use ram and resources.
> Who knows, one of the above 3 just might help.
> Buffalo

Thanks for the "doable" suggestion.

Well, I conducted the tests yesterday, and here are the results:

> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0
> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize

(Sys res. readings from Resource Meter)

3 ABOVE DONE "NORMAL" (IE NONE OF THE 3 DONE)

after boot:
86, 86, 88 85, 86, 85

ADSL network log on
forgot to check 81, 81, 81

after :30 min of myspace
68, 73, 68 73, 73, 75 (a few diff sites)

after 1:00 hr of myspace, 4 browser windows open
60, 73, 60 59, 59, 65

after 1:30 hr of myspace, 3 windows open, 2 browsers, XNews and
2 other small things
65, 65, 65 61, 61, 65

after 1:45, 1 window open and 2 small progs
69, 69, 75 70, 70, 72

almost 2 hrs, download manager open and a few basic windows in
left column,
nothing open in right column
69, 69, 80 76, 76, 78

Swapfile, in spite of removing the upper limit, has remained at
200 MB and 0 of it has been used (which is why it didn't get
bigger, I imagine ;-)

Basically, with minor variations in the order of 5%-10% which I
would consider as insignificant, I do not see much difference. I
either didn't push the machine hard enough (I didn't open 10
FFox and 10 Opera windows) or I was lucky - because 1 or 2
windows will sometimes bring me down to under 20%, but as you
see, I never even got below 55% on any of the 3, and I used
myspace (which is the biggest bloat I could think of) for the
test!

Another mystery is whether the "unload DLL's" registry entry has
ANYthing to do with this. Shouldn't have, but MAY have. I am
doing this test now (I turned the "always unload" to OFF) as the
next and final one. I am at 57, 57, 69, and I only have Xnews
and 3 tiny utils open. There may be something going on here...

Sigh.

I /really/ appreciate your patience and help.

(And I really hope I didn't offend you with that statement about
nobody needing XP or Vista...
Just realized my current signature is singularly appropriate to
that particular incident !!!)

t.

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> Just for grins,
> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0 (This set to one
> sometimes helped in game playing)\
> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize.
>
> Try it, it is SO easy to change back. :)
> Remember,all 'free ram' programs use ram and resources.
> Who knows, one of the above 3 just might help.
> Buffalo

Thanks for the "doable" suggestion.

Well, I conducted the tests yesterday, and here are the results:

> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0
> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize

(Sys res. readings from Resource Meter)

3 ABOVE DONE "NORMAL" (IE NONE OF THE 3 DONE)

after boot:
86, 86, 88 85, 86, 85

ADSL network log on
forgot to check 81, 81, 81

after :30 min of myspace
68, 73, 68 73, 73, 75 (a few diff sites)

after 1:00 hr of myspace, 4 browser windows open
60, 73, 60 59, 59, 65

after 1:30 hr of myspace, 3 windows open, 2 browsers, XNews and
2 other small things
65, 65, 65 61, 61, 65

after 1:45, 1 window open and 2 small progs
69, 69, 75 70, 70, 72

almost 2 hrs, download manager open and a few basic windows in
left column,
nothing open in right column
69, 69, 80 76, 76, 78

Swapfile, in spite of removing the upper limit, has remained at
200 MB and 0 of it has been used (which is why it didn't get
bigger, I imagine ;-)

Basically, with minor variations in the order of 5%-10% which I
would consider as insignificant, I do not see much difference. I
either didn't push the machine hard enough (I didn't open 10
FFox and 10 Opera windows) or I was lucky - because 1 or 2
windows will sometimes bring me down to under 20%, but as you
see, I never even got below 55% on any of the 3, and I used
myspace (which is the biggest bloat I could think of) for the
test!

Another mystery is whether the "unload DLL's" registry entry has
ANYthing to do with this. Shouldn't have, but MAY have. I am
doing this test now (I turned the "always unload" to OFF) as the
next and final one. I am at 57, 57, 69, and I only have Xnews
and 3 tiny utils open. There may be something going on here...

Sigh.

I /really/ appreciate your patience and help.

(And I really hope I didn't offend you with that statement about
nobody needing XP or Vista...
Just realized my current signature is singularly appropriate to
that particular incident !!!)

t.

[thanatoid]

"PCR" > wrote in
:


> Closing a program with Ctrl-Alt-Del won't necessarily free
> resources, because the program may not do its housekeeping
> regarding the resource heaps that way. The program needs to
> tell the system that heap space has been freed. If a
> program has hung & cannot be closed normally, possibly
> TaskInfo 2000 will get it to close in an orderly manner. I
> know EndItAll2 will first send a close request to a hung
> program. If it still fails to close, then it will be killed
> the way Ctrl-Alt-Del kills them.

Yeah, I have EndItAll as well but I only use it to end it all,
for whatever reason.

I think the "always unload DLL's" reg. key is helping, maybe,
perhaps...

> The more RAM, the less chance there will be a need to use
> the swap file. Looks like "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" is
> meant to revert to Win95 determinations as to when to write
> to the swap file...
>
> • INFO: The Windows 98 PageFile_Call_Async_Manager Service
> (223294) - If this entry is absent from System.ini, the
> default setting
> for ConservativeSwapfileUsage is 1 for Windows 95, and 0
> (zero) for Windows 98. When Windows 98 performs
> asynchronous ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223294

This is just too confusing...

> • 125 tips for Windows 98
> (835834) - ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. This could reduce
> the amount of
> disk swapping Windows does, and so speed up your system..
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835834

This makes sense, and with 1GB RAM on 98SELite it was not
surprising that the swap file never gets touched. That's why I
set it to 200MB instead of 2.5 GB ;-)

>|> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources.
>|> And I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe
>|> it reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods,
>|> which I think spent less time anticipating the size to
>|> make the swap file. This is probably what you want to
>|> do-- instead of setting the max/min to the same number!

Well, the ONLY way to stop Win 9x from constantly checking and
adjusting the swap file size is to set it to be the same size
and tell Windows to lay off. That was one of the first tweaks
for 9x I read, and I have stuck to it. It makes sense, has
worked perfectly for me for 14 years, and anyway, with 1GB of
RAM it appears to become irrelevant - on THIS machine anyway, it
might be different with a 4GHz dual core...

>| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about
>| 2.5 (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it
>| anyway :-) , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of
>| some habits.
>
> It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have a
> horrible crash that way!

Well, I never have in 14 years :-)

> That's why I discontinued the
> practice, myself-- though it actually is suggested in
> Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub), pp.1041-1042! It
> says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space. Then,
> set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x installed RAM.
> That was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant to reduce
> certain swap file processing activity-- which I guess is
> re-sizing decision making.

See above why I set it to 200MB. It could be 50 MB, I am sure.

>| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way
>| to set it up doesn't help either!
>
> Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has
> suggested.

I have. The results were not as clear as one would like them to
be, see my reply to him.

<SNIP>

> It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file & disk
> cache settings, because they may have an effect on your
> browser's doings.

How? I see no direct relation.

> Also, check the size of your TIF storage
> area-- maybe make it larger or even smaller.

I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that would be
the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they are not
adjustable in any manner that I am aware of, although I have NOT
read the FFox help file, but it is Opera that seems the bigger
culprit anyway... Ob1 uses RAM for cache and needless to say has
NO problems with 1GB... (I used to sometimes hang the machine
with 10 Ob1 windows open when I was using my 166 with 64 MB of
RAM...) It really is the perfect browser, and if those maniacs
didn't develop Java and flash it would be the ONLY browser
necessary... And we would all waste a lot less time on mostly
futile attempts to recapture our past and youth, which is how I
largely see the use of FLV (if not most of the web) by anyone
over 40.

>|> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
>|> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
>|> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System
>|> Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK".

I used it yesterday for 2 hours, it showed that the swap file
was never touched, so I turned it off. I find most of its other
info incomprehensible and I am too old to learn what it is.

> May as well
>|> take "Resource Meter", too.

I have it in the "sys utils" subsection of my start menu, and I
have been using it when doing these experiments. See reply to
Buffalo.

>|> Now, go through the menus and
>|> at least have it display
>|>
>|> (a) Swap file in use.
>|> (b) Swap file size.
>|> (c) Swappable memory.
>|> (d) Unused physical memory.
>|> (e) Allocated memory.
>|> (f) Disk cache size.
>|> (g) Locked memory
>|> (h) Other memory
>|> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
>|> (j) Kernel Threads

I'll have to look up Kernel threads on Wiki. Please don't waste
time explaining it - you have been far too helpful as it is.

>|> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
>|> Size before/after the problem begins.

As I said, swap file use has stayed at 0 I believe since I put
in the I GB of RAM 3 months ago.
It didn't occur to me to monitor Disk Cache, I understand that's
what the

[vcache]
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=524288

section applies to. But my free RAM has never gone below 400MB
or so since I've had the 1 GB stick.

>| I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much
>| trouble describing the procedure, but I don't think I can
>| muster up the patience to go through such a process. Also,
>| I have played with System Monitor and I find it 50%
>| mystifying and 50% annoying. I just LOVE it when you click
>| the ? on "page discards" and it tells you "shows page
>| discards", or something. How f*g helpful.
>|
>| So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.
>
> That was basically all written long ago, not just now. I
> suspect disk cache involvement in the resources problem. I
> know mine grows very large when I get a resources crash
> over a different matter.

OK, I'll start monitoring it. AT this moment (1 browser window,
Xnews, few small utils) it is using under 60KB. LRU cache
recycles = 0.

Any particular other disk cache graphs I should be looking at?

(Example of "MS help": "Minimum cache pages => explain =>
Minimum number of disk cache pages." ALRIGHT!!!)

> Resource Meter puts up a warning of its own. Unfortunately,
> sometimes that warning is hidden under another window! But
> its icon in the Tray also will turn red-- if only one can
> remember to look at it once in a while!

There is no setting for WHEN it will turn yellow or red... But I
have noticed it doing so on rare occasions... I must say I
prefer FreeRam XP telling me I am under 20% on 1 or more of the
3...

>|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
>|> they get. A reboot would clear it

That's what I meant before when I said no way to cure sys res
except Ctl-Alt-Del... It was a slight simplification and a weak
attempt at a joke.

>|> but, obviously, it's
>|> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have
>|> "Resource Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
>|> from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove
>|> Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check
>|> System Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
>|> "System Monitor", too.

Like I said, they're very easy to start manually... I sort of
hate to take the 'decisive" step of putting it in startup...
Like admitting I have a horrible unsolvable problem I have to
watch forever from now on...

>| Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and
>| 77%. Not bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but
>| I haven't gotten around to going to a site with it yet
>| (trying to find the link as I write this!). Not bad.
>
> Those are respectable figures. That 1st figure -- system
> resources -- is always set to the lower of the other two.
> It has no separate meaning of its own. My own figures right
> now are 50% System, 50% User, 70% GDI. I'm online in this
> NG & have done some browsing.

I'm at 51, 51, 64. About the same activity as you.

>| (A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
>| above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There
>| were NO images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone
>| through.)
>
> Keep it up. Check those resources after going to each of
> your favorite sites. Do they increase after closing a site?
> Try closing the browser too to see whether it will free
> them.

Yes, they go up noticeably. When I closed almost everything they
went up into the 70-80% area.
I have not determined for sure whether the "always unload DLL's"
is helping here or not... That's the next (and possibly last)
test... The basic result of the test, although not terribly
conclusive, in fact not at all conclusive, is what I thought
from the beginning, that when I go to very graphic-rich web
pages with the big browsers or use an image browser running
through many photos, that eats a lot of GDI's.

I tried something called RegTool (http://www.RegTool.com/) since
it claims to fix Opera crashing with the flash plugin... The
GDI's went down below 20 when I was running it, and went up to
75% when I closed it. That was weird. Have not found out yet
whether it /did/ anything, I wanted to reply to you guys first.

<SNIP>

>|> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
>|> went up after switching to an LSD
>|
>| ahem...
>
> Yikes! I only did that once-- & I didn't like it!

My head is messed up enough as it is... But I used to know
people who ate it like candy... It seems most people either take
i once or a LOT... Then there are those poor *******s like Peter
Green or Syd Barrett... I have a feeling I would have ended up
like them...

>| Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of
>| anti-LCD monitor information.
>
> No-- I have more GDI resources with this LCD monitor than I
> had with its non-LCD predecessors!

I misread - I am VERY prejudiced against LCD's... I understood
that USE of GDI's has gone up.
Frankly, I can NOT figure out what the monitor type could have
to do with GDI's.

<SNIP>

>|> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
>|> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32,
>|> Software Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run,
>|> MSConfig, Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete
>|> from the Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may
>|> maintain multiple configurations of items to include in
>|> the Group.

StartUpChanger 2000 does the same, it is VERY good. I would say
I have about 75% of what Windows wants me to run ticked NOT to
run. (WHAT the heck is WinDVDPatch/CTHelper? I don't even have a
DVD drive!)

I am also not afraid to go into the registry and remove "run"
type stuff.

<SNIP>

> Understandable. Sounds like only the GDI Resources face a
> 64K limitation now. However, the heap or list that
> comprises the User Resources, although it can address more
> RAM for its "elements"-- still has a size issue. When space
> runs out for entries in the list (pointers to the
> elements)-- one is out of resources!

Sorry, I don't /quite/ understand that (will read few more times
;-)
Gotta look up "heap" on Wiki as well.

Thanks /again/!
t.

[thanatoid]

"PCR" > wrote in
:


> Closing a program with Ctrl-Alt-Del won't necessarily free
> resources, because the program may not do its housekeeping
> regarding the resource heaps that way. The program needs to
> tell the system that heap space has been freed. If a
> program has hung & cannot be closed normally, possibly
> TaskInfo 2000 will get it to close in an orderly manner. I
> know EndItAll2 will first send a close request to a hung
> program. If it still fails to close, then it will be killed
> the way Ctrl-Alt-Del kills them.

Yeah, I have EndItAll as well but I only use it to end it all,
for whatever reason.

I think the "always unload DLL's" reg. key is helping, maybe,
perhaps...

> The more RAM, the less chance there will be a need to use
> the swap file. Looks like "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" is
> meant to revert to Win95 determinations as to when to write
> to the swap file...
>
> • INFO: The Windows 98 PageFile_Call_Async_Manager Service
> (223294) - If this entry is absent from System.ini, the
> default setting
> for ConservativeSwapfileUsage is 1 for Windows 95, and 0
> (zero) for Windows 98. When Windows 98 performs
> asynchronous ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223294

This is just too confusing...

> • 125 tips for Windows 98
> (835834) - ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. This could reduce
> the amount of
> disk swapping Windows does, and so speed up your system..
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835834

This makes sense, and with 1GB RAM on 98SELite it was not
surprising that the swap file never gets touched. That's why I
set it to 200MB instead of 2.5 GB ;-)

>|> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources.
>|> And I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe
>|> it reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods,
>|> which I think spent less time anticipating the size to
>|> make the swap file. This is probably what you want to
>|> do-- instead of setting the max/min to the same number!

Well, the ONLY way to stop Win 9x from constantly checking and
adjusting the swap file size is to set it to be the same size
and tell Windows to lay off. That was one of the first tweaks
for 9x I read, and I have stuck to it. It makes sense, has
worked perfectly for me for 14 years, and anyway, with 1GB of
RAM it appears to become irrelevant - on THIS machine anyway, it
might be different with a 4GHz dual core...

>| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about
>| 2.5 (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it
>| anyway :-) , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of
>| some habits.
>
> It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have a
> horrible crash that way!

Well, I never have in 14 years :-)

> That's why I discontinued the
> practice, myself-- though it actually is suggested in
> Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub), pp.1041-1042! It
> says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space. Then,
> set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x installed RAM.
> That was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant to reduce
> certain swap file processing activity-- which I guess is
> re-sizing decision making.

See above why I set it to 200MB. It could be 50 MB, I am sure.

>| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way
>| to set it up doesn't help either!
>
> Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has
> suggested.

I have. The results were not as clear as one would like them to
be, see my reply to him.

<SNIP>

> It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file & disk
> cache settings, because they may have an effect on your
> browser's doings.

How? I see no direct relation.

> Also, check the size of your TIF storage
> area-- maybe make it larger or even smaller.

I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that would be
the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they are not
adjustable in any manner that I am aware of, although I have NOT
read the FFox help file, but it is Opera that seems the bigger
culprit anyway... Ob1 uses RAM for cache and needless to say has
NO problems with 1GB... (I used to sometimes hang the machine
with 10 Ob1 windows open when I was using my 166 with 64 MB of
RAM...) It really is the perfect browser, and if those maniacs
didn't develop Java and flash it would be the ONLY browser
necessary... And we would all waste a lot less time on mostly
futile attempts to recapture our past and youth, which is how I
largely see the use of FLV (if not most of the web) by anyone
over 40.

>|> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
>|> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
>|> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System
>|> Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK".

I used it yesterday for 2 hours, it showed that the swap file
was never touched, so I turned it off. I find most of its other
info incomprehensible and I am too old to learn what it is.

> May as well
>|> take "Resource Meter", too.

I have it in the "sys utils" subsection of my start menu, and I
have been using it when doing these experiments. See reply to
Buffalo.

>|> Now, go through the menus and
>|> at least have it display
>|>
>|> (a) Swap file in use.
>|> (b) Swap file size.
>|> (c) Swappable memory.
>|> (d) Unused physical memory.
>|> (e) Allocated memory.
>|> (f) Disk cache size.
>|> (g) Locked memory
>|> (h) Other memory
>|> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
>|> (j) Kernel Threads

I'll have to look up Kernel threads on Wiki. Please don't waste
time explaining it - you have been far too helpful as it is.

>|> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
>|> Size before/after the problem begins.

As I said, swap file use has stayed at 0 I believe since I put
in the I GB of RAM 3 months ago.
It didn't occur to me to monitor Disk Cache, I understand that's
what the

[vcache]
MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=524288

section applies to. But my free RAM has never gone below 400MB
or so since I've had the 1 GB stick.

>| I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much
>| trouble describing the procedure, but I don't think I can
>| muster up the patience to go through such a process. Also,
>| I have played with System Monitor and I find it 50%
>| mystifying and 50% annoying. I just LOVE it when you click
>| the ? on "page discards" and it tells you "shows page
>| discards", or something. How f*g helpful.
>|
>| So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.
>
> That was basically all written long ago, not just now. I
> suspect disk cache involvement in the resources problem. I
> know mine grows very large when I get a resources crash
> over a different matter.

OK, I'll start monitoring it. AT this moment (1 browser window,
Xnews, few small utils) it is using under 60KB. LRU cache
recycles = 0.

Any particular other disk cache graphs I should be looking at?

(Example of "MS help": "Minimum cache pages => explain =>
Minimum number of disk cache pages." ALRIGHT!!!)

> Resource Meter puts up a warning of its own. Unfortunately,
> sometimes that warning is hidden under another window! But
> its icon in the Tray also will turn red-- if only one can
> remember to look at it once in a while!

There is no setting for WHEN it will turn yellow or red... But I
have noticed it doing so on rare occasions... I must say I
prefer FreeRam XP telling me I am under 20% on 1 or more of the
3...

>|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
>|> they get. A reboot would clear it

That's what I meant before when I said no way to cure sys res
except Ctl-Alt-Del... It was a slight simplification and a weak
attempt at a joke.

>|> but, obviously, it's
>|> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have
>|> "Resource Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
>|> from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove
>|> Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check
>|> System Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
>|> "System Monitor", too.

Like I said, they're very easy to start manually... I sort of
hate to take the 'decisive" step of putting it in startup...
Like admitting I have a horrible unsolvable problem I have to
watch forever from now on...

>| Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and
>| 77%. Not bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but
>| I haven't gotten around to going to a site with it yet
>| (trying to find the link as I write this!). Not bad.
>
> Those are respectable figures. That 1st figure -- system
> resources -- is always set to the lower of the other two.
> It has no separate meaning of its own. My own figures right
> now are 50% System, 50% User, 70% GDI. I'm online in this
> NG & have done some browsing.

I'm at 51, 51, 64. About the same activity as you.

>| (A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
>| above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There
>| were NO images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone
>| through.)
>
> Keep it up. Check those resources after going to each of
> your favorite sites. Do they increase after closing a site?
> Try closing the browser too to see whether it will free
> them.

Yes, they go up noticeably. When I closed almost everything they
went up into the 70-80% area.
I have not determined for sure whether the "always unload DLL's"
is helping here or not... That's the next (and possibly last)
test... The basic result of the test, although not terribly
conclusive, in fact not at all conclusive, is what I thought
from the beginning, that when I go to very graphic-rich web
pages with the big browsers or use an image browser running
through many photos, that eats a lot of GDI's.

I tried something called RegTool (http://www.RegTool.com/) since
it claims to fix Opera crashing with the flash plugin... The
GDI's went down below 20 when I was running it, and went up to
75% when I closed it. That was weird. Have not found out yet
whether it /did/ anything, I wanted to reply to you guys first.

<SNIP>

>|> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
>|> went up after switching to an LSD
>|
>| ahem...
>
> Yikes! I only did that once-- & I didn't like it!

My head is messed up enough as it is... But I used to know
people who ate it like candy... It seems most people either take
i once or a LOT... Then there are those poor *******s like Peter
Green or Syd Barrett... I have a feeling I would have ended up
like them...

>| Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of
>| anti-LCD monitor information.
>
> No-- I have more GDI resources with this LCD monitor than I
> had with its non-LCD predecessors!

I misread - I am VERY prejudiced against LCD's... I understood
that USE of GDI's has gone up.
Frankly, I can NOT figure out what the monitor type could have
to do with GDI's.

<SNIP>

>|> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
>|> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32,
>|> Software Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run,
>|> MSConfig, Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete
>|> from the Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may
>|> maintain multiple configurations of items to include in
>|> the Group.

StartUpChanger 2000 does the same, it is VERY good. I would say
I have about 75% of what Windows wants me to run ticked NOT to
run. (WHAT the heck is WinDVDPatch/CTHelper? I don't even have a
DVD drive!)

I am also not afraid to go into the registry and remove "run"
type stuff.

<SNIP>

> Understandable. Sounds like only the GDI Resources face a
> 64K limitation now. However, the heap or list that
> comprises the User Resources, although it can address more
> RAM for its "elements"-- still has a size issue. When space
> runs out for entries in the list (pointers to the
> elements)-- one is out of resources!

Sorry, I don't /quite/ understand that (will read few more times
;-)
Gotta look up "heap" on Wiki as well.

Thanks /again/!
t.

[thanatoid]

Franc Zabkar > wrote in
:

> On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:52:13 +0100, Etal
> > put finger to keyboard
> and composed:
>
>>thanatoid wrote:
>>
>>> I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of
>>> them) but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with
>>> images" as 7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT
>>> was VERY different from 7.23 as well. I find it really
>>> peculiar that they change the appearance and options and
>>> functionality so much... Some day I might try 5.12...
>>> When it's a slow day... But next time I do an Acronis
>>> restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
>>> /really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be
>>> enough, FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its
>>> structural/directory design is MOST unpleasant.
>>>
>>> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or
>>> forward is just ///unbelievable///.
>>
>>If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
>>[Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].
>
> Opera has the same shortcut keys:
> http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/nomouse/
>
> "Z and Alt+Left go back in history. X and Alt+Right go
> forward."

That should be /or/ not /and/ - for the 3 versions I have used,
anyway. Those Norwegians... ;-)

I use just the z and the x do it, like in Ob1. Although I
suppose adding Alt is not the end of the world.

> Furthermore, it is actually easier in Opera to do this with
> the mouse. To go back, hold down the right button on your
> mouse and then press the left button. To go forward, hold
> down the left button and then press the right button.

You know, I for some reason I am terrified of pressing both
mouse buttons at the same time. But I might try that...

(...)

WOW. I did, and nothing blew up. And it IS easier, since
(unfortunately) it is necessary to have the hand on the mouse at
all times while webbing...

Thanks for sharing your exceptional knowledge, as usual.

t.

[thanatoid]

Franc Zabkar > wrote in
:

> On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:52:13 +0100, Etal
> > put finger to keyboard
> and composed:
>
>>thanatoid wrote:
>>
>>> I really dislike some of the FFox "features" (or lack of
>>> them) but OTOH, Opera 8.01 doesn't have "save page with
>>> images" as 7.23 did! In fact I tried 7.54 as well and IT
>>> was VERY different from 7.23 as well. I find it really
>>> peculiar that they change the appearance and options and
>>> functionality so much... Some day I might try 5.12...
>>> When it's a slow day... But next time I do an Acronis
>>> restore, I think I'll reinstall 7.23. As much as I
>>> /really/ hate having THREE browsers when ONE should be
>>> enough, FFox does swf/flv very nicely. But its
>>> structural/directory design is MOST unpleasant.
>>>
>>> And the fact you have to use THE MOUSE to go back or
>>> forward is just ///unbelievable///.
>>
>>If the last sentence is about Firefox 2.0.0.x, try
>>[Alt]+[LeftArrow] and [Alt]+[RightArrow].
>
> Opera has the same shortcut keys:
> http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/nomouse/
>
> "Z and Alt+Left go back in history. X and Alt+Right go
> forward."

That should be /or/ not /and/ - for the 3 versions I have used,
anyway. Those Norwegians... ;-)

I use just the z and the x do it, like in Ob1. Although I
suppose adding Alt is not the end of the world.

> Furthermore, it is actually easier in Opera to do this with
> the mouse. To go back, hold down the right button on your
> mouse and then press the left button. To go forward, hold
> down the left button and then press the right button.

You know, I for some reason I am terrified of pressing both
mouse buttons at the same time. But I might try that...

(...)

WOW. I did, and nothing blew up. And it IS easier, since
(unfortunately) it is necessary to have the hand on the mouse at
all times while webbing...

Thanks for sharing your exceptional knowledge, as usual.

t.

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "Buffalo" > wrote in
> :
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> Just for grins,
>> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
>> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0 (This set to one
>> sometimes helped in game playing)\
>> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize.
>>
>> Try it, it is SO easy to change back. :)
>> Remember,all 'free ram' programs use ram and resources.
>> Who knows, one of the above 3 just might help.
>> Buffalo
>
> Thanks for the "doable" suggestion.
>
> Well, I conducted the tests yesterday, and here are the results:
>
>> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
>> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0
>> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize
>
> (Sys res. readings from Resource Meter)
>
> 3 ABOVE DONE "NORMAL" (IE NONE OF THE 3 DONE)
>
> after boot:
> 86, 86, 88 85, 86, 85
>
> ADSL network log on
> forgot to check 81, 81, 81
>
> after :30 min of myspace
> 68, 73, 68 73, 73, 75 (a few diff sites)
>
> after 1:00 hr of myspace, 4 browser windows open
> 60, 73, 60 59, 59, 65
>
> after 1:30 hr of myspace, 3 windows open, 2 browsers, XNews and
> 2 other small things
> 65, 65, 65 61, 61, 65
>
> after 1:45, 1 window open and 2 small progs
> 69, 69, 75 70, 70, 72
>
> almost 2 hrs, download manager open and a few basic windows in
> left column,
> nothing open in right column
> 69, 69, 80 76, 76, 78
>
> Swapfile, in spite of removing the upper limit, has remained at
> 200 MB and 0 of it has been used (which is why it didn't get
> bigger, I imagine ;-)
>
> Basically, with minor variations in the order of 5%-10% which I
> would consider as insignificant, I do not see much difference. I
> either didn't push the machine hard enough (I didn't open 10
> FFox and 10 Opera windows) or I was lucky - because 1 or 2
> windows will sometimes bring me down to under 20%, but as you
> see, I never even got below 55% on any of the 3, and I used
> myspace (which is the biggest bloat I could think of) for the
> test!
>
> Another mystery is whether the "unload DLL's" registry entry has
> ANYthing to do with this. Shouldn't have, but MAY have. I am
> doing this test now (I turned the "always unload" to OFF) as the
> next and final one. I am at 57, 57, 69, and I only have Xnews
> and 3 tiny utils open. There may be something going on here...
>
> Sigh.
>
> I /really/ appreciate your patience and help.
>
> (And I really hope I didn't offend you with that statement about
> nobody needing XP or Vista...
> Just realized my current signature is singularly appropriate to
> that particular incident !!!)
>
> t.
Now try it with ConservativeSwapFile set to one and turn off your Free Ram
program and let Windows manage your swapfile.
Don't forget to reboot. (AFAIK, the CSF above set to one stops Windows from
using the swap file until all physical memory is used up)
Then you might leave the above and set the min-max limits the same again for
you swap file and reboot.
Who knows, something may even work. At least you won't get bored.
Buffalo :)

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> "Buffalo" > wrote in
> :
>
> <SNIP>
>
>> Just for grins,
>> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
>> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0 (This set to one
>> sometimes helped in game playing)\
>> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize.
>>
>> Try it, it is SO easy to change back. :)
>> Remember,all 'free ram' programs use ram and resources.
>> Who knows, one of the above 3 just might help.
>> Buffalo
>
> Thanks for the "doable" suggestion.
>
> Well, I conducted the tests yesterday, and here are the results:
>
>> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
>> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0
>> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize
>
> (Sys res. readings from Resource Meter)
>
> 3 ABOVE DONE "NORMAL" (IE NONE OF THE 3 DONE)
>
> after boot:
> 86, 86, 88 85, 86, 85
>
> ADSL network log on
> forgot to check 81, 81, 81
>
> after :30 min of myspace
> 68, 73, 68 73, 73, 75 (a few diff sites)
>
> after 1:00 hr of myspace, 4 browser windows open
> 60, 73, 60 59, 59, 65
>
> after 1:30 hr of myspace, 3 windows open, 2 browsers, XNews and
> 2 other small things
> 65, 65, 65 61, 61, 65
>
> after 1:45, 1 window open and 2 small progs
> 69, 69, 75 70, 70, 72
>
> almost 2 hrs, download manager open and a few basic windows in
> left column,
> nothing open in right column
> 69, 69, 80 76, 76, 78
>
> Swapfile, in spite of removing the upper limit, has remained at
> 200 MB and 0 of it has been used (which is why it didn't get
> bigger, I imagine ;-)
>
> Basically, with minor variations in the order of 5%-10% which I
> would consider as insignificant, I do not see much difference. I
> either didn't push the machine hard enough (I didn't open 10
> FFox and 10 Opera windows) or I was lucky - because 1 or 2
> windows will sometimes bring me down to under 20%, but as you
> see, I never even got below 55% on any of the 3, and I used
> myspace (which is the biggest bloat I could think of) for the
> test!
>
> Another mystery is whether the "unload DLL's" registry entry has
> ANYthing to do with this. Shouldn't have, but MAY have. I am
> doing this test now (I turned the "always unload" to OFF) as the
> next and final one. I am at 57, 57, 69, and I only have Xnews
> and 3 tiny utils open. There may be something going on here...
>
> Sigh.
>
> I /really/ appreciate your patience and help.
>
> (And I really hope I didn't offend you with that statement about
> nobody needing XP or Vista...
> Just realized my current signature is singularly appropriate to
> that particular incident !!!)
>
> t.
Now try it with ConservativeSwapFile set to one and turn off your Free Ram
program and let Windows manage your swapfile.
Don't forget to reboot. (AFAIK, the CSF above set to one stops Windows from
using the swap file until all physical memory is used up)
Then you might leave the above and set the min-max limits the same again for
you swap file and reboot.
Who knows, something may even work. At least you won't get bored.
Buffalo :)

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

>>> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
>>> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0
>>> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize
>>
>> (Sys res. readings from Resource Meter)
>>
>> 3 ABOVE DONE "NORMAL" (IE NONE OF THE 3 DONE)
>>
>> after boot:
>> 86, 86, 88 85, 86, 85
>>
>> ADSL network log on
>> forgot to check 81, 81, 81
>>
>> after :30 min of myspace
>> 68, 73, 68 73, 73, 75 (a few diff sites)
>>
>> after 1:00 hr of myspace, 4 browser windows open
>> 60, 73, 60 59, 59, 65
>>
>> after 1:30 hr of myspace, 3 windows open, 2 browsers,
>> XNews and 2 other small things
>> 65, 65, 65 61, 61, 65
>>
>> after 1:45, 1 window open and 2 small progs
>> 69, 69, 75 70, 70, 72
>>
>> almost 2 hrs, download manager open and a few basic
>> windows in left column,
>> nothing open in right column
>> 69, 69, 80 76, 76, 78
>>
>> Swapfile, in spite of removing the upper limit, has
>> remained at 200 MB and 0 of it has been used (which is why
>> it didn't get bigger, I imagine ;-)
>>
>> Basically, with minor variations in the order of 5%-10%
>> which I would consider as insignificant, I do not see much
>> difference. I either didn't push the machine hard enough
>> (I didn't open 10 FFox and 10 Opera windows) or I was
>> lucky - because 1 or 2 windows will sometimes bring me
>> down to under 20%, but as you see, I never even got below
>> 55% on any of the 3, and I used myspace (which is the
>> biggest bloat I could think of) for the test!
>>
>> Another mystery is whether the "unload DLL's" registry
>> entry has ANYthing to do with this. Shouldn't have, but
>> MAY have. I am doing this test now (I turned the "always
>> unload" to OFF) as the next and final one. I am at 57, 57,
>> 69, and I only have Xnews and 3 tiny utils open. There may
>> be something going on here...
>>
>> Sigh.
>>
>> I /really/ appreciate your patience and help.
>>
>> (And I really hope I didn't offend you with that statement
>> about nobody needing XP or Vista...
>> Just realized my current signature is singularly
>> appropriate to that particular incident !!!)
>>
>> t.

> Now try it with ConservativeSwapFile set to one and turn
> off your Free Ram program and let Windows manage your
> swapfile. Don't forget to reboot. (AFAIK, the CSF above set
> to one stops Windows from using the swap file until all
> physical memory is used up) Then you might leave the above
> and set the min-max limits the same again for you swap file
> and reboot. Who knows, something may even work. At least
> you won't get bored. Buffalo :)

OK sir. You ARE one of the most patient people I have run across
around here.
Will report.

BTW I disabled the "unload DLL's and it does not seem to have
made much difference.
I have been on the /web/ with lots of images and flv's and eBay
and stuff all day, including ACDSee thumbnailing 120 pictures
(that used to almost do it to my resources) of Kate Perry who I
just discovered (the American Lily Allen, some say, others get
offended) and at the moment I am at 59, 59, 68, and have been
higher when I closed something.

I am *baffled* - two weeks ago I would have gotten hung for sure
(/what/ is the proper syntax here?). It just does NOT make ANY
sense. But it's Windows I suppose.

Still, tomorrow, I will change these setting you mention above
and reboot and see how it goes.

Thanks.


--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[thanatoid]

"Buffalo" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

>>> 1)turn OFF your "FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40" program
>>> 2)Set ConservativeSwapFileUsage to 0
>>> 3)Remove your limits on MaxPagingFileSize
>>
>> (Sys res. readings from Resource Meter)
>>
>> 3 ABOVE DONE "NORMAL" (IE NONE OF THE 3 DONE)
>>
>> after boot:
>> 86, 86, 88 85, 86, 85
>>
>> ADSL network log on
>> forgot to check 81, 81, 81
>>
>> after :30 min of myspace
>> 68, 73, 68 73, 73, 75 (a few diff sites)
>>
>> after 1:00 hr of myspace, 4 browser windows open
>> 60, 73, 60 59, 59, 65
>>
>> after 1:30 hr of myspace, 3 windows open, 2 browsers,
>> XNews and 2 other small things
>> 65, 65, 65 61, 61, 65
>>
>> after 1:45, 1 window open and 2 small progs
>> 69, 69, 75 70, 70, 72
>>
>> almost 2 hrs, download manager open and a few basic
>> windows in left column,
>> nothing open in right column
>> 69, 69, 80 76, 76, 78
>>
>> Swapfile, in spite of removing the upper limit, has
>> remained at 200 MB and 0 of it has been used (which is why
>> it didn't get bigger, I imagine ;-)
>>
>> Basically, with minor variations in the order of 5%-10%
>> which I would consider as insignificant, I do not see much
>> difference. I either didn't push the machine hard enough
>> (I didn't open 10 FFox and 10 Opera windows) or I was
>> lucky - because 1 or 2 windows will sometimes bring me
>> down to under 20%, but as you see, I never even got below
>> 55% on any of the 3, and I used myspace (which is the
>> biggest bloat I could think of) for the test!
>>
>> Another mystery is whether the "unload DLL's" registry
>> entry has ANYthing to do with this. Shouldn't have, but
>> MAY have. I am doing this test now (I turned the "always
>> unload" to OFF) as the next and final one. I am at 57, 57,
>> 69, and I only have Xnews and 3 tiny utils open. There may
>> be something going on here...
>>
>> Sigh.
>>
>> I /really/ appreciate your patience and help.
>>
>> (And I really hope I didn't offend you with that statement
>> about nobody needing XP or Vista...
>> Just realized my current signature is singularly
>> appropriate to that particular incident !!!)
>>
>> t.

> Now try it with ConservativeSwapFile set to one and turn
> off your Free Ram program and let Windows manage your
> swapfile. Don't forget to reboot. (AFAIK, the CSF above set
> to one stops Windows from using the swap file until all
> physical memory is used up) Then you might leave the above
> and set the min-max limits the same again for you swap file
> and reboot. Who knows, something may even work. At least
> you won't get bored. Buffalo :)

OK sir. You ARE one of the most patient people I have run across
around here.
Will report.

BTW I disabled the "unload DLL's and it does not seem to have
made much difference.
I have been on the /web/ with lots of images and flv's and eBay
and stuff all day, including ACDSee thumbnailing 120 pictures
(that used to almost do it to my resources) of Kate Perry who I
just discovered (the American Lily Allen, some say, others get
offended) and at the moment I am at 59, 59, 68, and have been
higher when I closed something.

I am *baffled* - two weeks ago I would have gotten hung for sure
(/what/ is the proper syntax here?). It just does NOT make ANY
sense. But it's Windows I suppose.

Still, tomorrow, I will change these setting you mention above
and reboot and see how it goes.

Thanks.


--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[thanatoid]

thanatoid > wrote in
:

Not tomorrow yet, but I just thought I'd tell you that after
over 12 hrs non-stop, doing all sorts of stuff, I have just
closed everything and I am at 76, 76, and 81.

Curiouser and curiouser.



--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[thanatoid]

thanatoid > wrote in
:

Not tomorrow yet, but I just thought I'd tell you that after
over 12 hrs non-stop, doing all sorts of stuff, I have just
closed everything and I am at 76, 76, and 81.

Curiouser and curiouser.



--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[Etal]

thanatoid wrote:

> "PCR" > wrote:


> I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that would be
> the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they are not
> adjustable in any manner that I am aware of, although I have NOT
> read the FFox help file, but it is Opera that seems the bigger
> culprit anyway...

... for Firefox:

The size of the Cache (on Disk) is adjustable in the normal place
to set preferences.
Tools(Menu) : Options : Advanced : Network(Tab) : Cache /MB

You can set the location of the Disk-Cache in a more CLI-like
preference way by entering 'about:config' via the address-field.

Filter for 'browser.cache.disk.parent_directory'. If it doesn't
exist, right-click in the big window and create a new
'String'-value with that name and a value with your desired
cache-path location. (I have for example: 'C:\Caches\Firefox\'
because i want my cache less deeply buried then the default.)



> <SNIP>
>
>> |> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
>> |> went up after switching to an LSD
>> |
>> | ahem...
>>


--
"Change returns success - Going and coming without error
Action brings good fortune - Sunset - Sunrise"


Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

[Etal]

thanatoid wrote:

> "PCR" > wrote:


> I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that would be
> the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they are not
> adjustable in any manner that I am aware of, although I have NOT
> read the FFox help file, but it is Opera that seems the bigger
> culprit anyway...

... for Firefox:

The size of the Cache (on Disk) is adjustable in the normal place
to set preferences.
Tools(Menu) : Options : Advanced : Network(Tab) : Cache /MB

You can set the location of the Disk-Cache in a more CLI-like
preference way by entering 'about:config' via the address-field.

Filter for 'browser.cache.disk.parent_directory'. If it doesn't
exist, right-click in the big window and create a new
'String'-value with that name and a value with your desired
cache-path location. (I have for example: 'C:\Caches\Firefox\'
because i want my cache less deeply buried then the default.)



> <SNIP>
>
>> |> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
>> |> went up after switching to an LSD
>> |
>> | ahem...
>>


--
"Change returns success - Going and coming without error
Action brings good fortune - Sunset - Sunrise"


Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> thanatoid > wrote in
> :
>
> Not tomorrow yet, but I just thought I'd tell you that after
> over 12 hrs non-stop, doing all sorts of stuff, I have just
> closed everything and I am at 76, 76, and 81.
>
> Curiouser and curiouser.

Well, maybe the computer gods are finally smiling on you. :)
Buffalo
PS: I have no other ideas and hopefully, if it happens again perhaps you
will find the cause.
It could have even been a browser or some other program update, or as you
mentioned, 'just Windows'.
Enjoy your PC. :)

[Buffalo]

thanatoid wrote:
> thanatoid > wrote in
> :
>
> Not tomorrow yet, but I just thought I'd tell you that after
> over 12 hrs non-stop, doing all sorts of stuff, I have just
> closed everything and I am at 76, 76, and 81.
>
> Curiouser and curiouser.

Well, maybe the computer gods are finally smiling on you. :)
Buffalo
PS: I have no other ideas and hopefully, if it happens again perhaps you
will find the cause.
It could have even been a browser or some other program update, or as you
mentioned, 'just Windows'.
Enjoy your PC. :)

[thanatoid]

Etal > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> ... for Firefox:
>
> The size of the Cache (on Disk) is adjustable in the normal
> place to set preferences.
> Tools(Menu) : Options : Advanced : Network(Tab) : Cache /MB
>
> You can set the location of the Disk-Cache in a more
> CLI-like preference way by entering 'about:config' via the
> address-field.
>
> Filter for 'browser.cache.disk.parent_directory'. If it
> doesn't exist, right-click in the big window and create a
> new 'String'-value with that name and a value with your
> desired cache-path location. (I have for example:
> 'C:\Caches\Firefox\' because i want my cache less deeply
> buried then the default.)

Thanks kindly for the info. I will apply all suggestions, they
are excellent.

Yes, the way Firefox buries its cache 6 levels down (or smth) is
almost enough reason to dump it. And because of its lack of
extensions in the cache I have stopped using it for image-
oriented web sites because it takes forever to get at the cached
images. It saves flv's much better than Opera though, and those
are so huge they are never a problem to identify.

So this works out well since Opera crashes with the swf plugins
at last half the time and although that can supposedly be
"repaired" I have not been able to do so. Also, Opera would not
save ALL flv's, it seemed about 8MB was the cutoff point. Weird.

But I still prefer OffByOne for everything and Opera for Java
sites, like the bank.


--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[thanatoid]

Etal > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

> ... for Firefox:
>
> The size of the Cache (on Disk) is adjustable in the normal
> place to set preferences.
> Tools(Menu) : Options : Advanced : Network(Tab) : Cache /MB
>
> You can set the location of the Disk-Cache in a more
> CLI-like preference way by entering 'about:config' via the
> address-field.
>
> Filter for 'browser.cache.disk.parent_directory'. If it
> doesn't exist, right-click in the big window and create a
> new 'String'-value with that name and a value with your
> desired cache-path location. (I have for example:
> 'C:\Caches\Firefox\' because i want my cache less deeply
> buried then the default.)

Thanks kindly for the info. I will apply all suggestions, they
are excellent.

Yes, the way Firefox buries its cache 6 levels down (or smth) is
almost enough reason to dump it. And because of its lack of
extensions in the cache I have stopped using it for image-
oriented web sites because it takes forever to get at the cached
images. It saves flv's much better than Opera though, and those
are so huge they are never a problem to identify.

So this works out well since Opera crashes with the swf plugins
at last half the time and although that can supposedly be
"repaired" I have not been able to do so. Also, Opera would not
save ALL flv's, it seemed about 8MB was the cutoff point. Weird.

But I still prefer OffByOne for everything and Opera for Java
sites, like the bank.


--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin

[Curt Christianson[_3_]]

"PCR" > wrote in message
...

<quote> I know my GDI resources went up after switching to an LSD monitor.
<end quote>

You monitor your *LSD* ?? I just take mine as needed!! <VBG>

--
Curt

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://www.aumha.org/
http://dundats.mvps.org/AutoIt/default.aspx

[Curt Christianson[_3_]]

"PCR" > wrote in message
...

<quote> I know my GDI resources went up after switching to an LSD monitor.
<end quote>

You monitor your *LSD* ?? I just take mine as needed!! <VBG>

--
Curt

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://www.aumha.org/
http://dundats.mvps.org/AutoIt/default.aspx

[PCR]

Curt Christianson wrote:
| "PCR" > wrote in message
| ...
|
| <quote> I know my GDI resources went up after switching to an LSD
| monitor. <end quote>
|
| You monitor your *LSD* ?? I just take mine as needed!! <VBG>

LOL! I only did it once long, long ago! And it was half a pill! It made
me sweat & worry I was dying! We walked to Pelham Parkway, & my older
brother was hugging a tree! But I just wanted it to end!

| --
| Curt
|
| http://dundats.mvps.org/
| http://www.aumha.org/
| http://dundats.mvps.org/AutoIt/default.aspx

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[PCR]

Curt Christianson wrote:
| "PCR" > wrote in message
| ...
|
| <quote> I know my GDI resources went up after switching to an LSD
| monitor. <end quote>
|
| You monitor your *LSD* ?? I just take mine as needed!! <VBG>

LOL! I only did it once long, long ago! And it was half a pill! It made
me sweat & worry I was dying! We walked to Pelham Parkway, & my older
brother was hugging a tree! But I just wanted it to end!

| --
| Curt
|
| http://dundats.mvps.org/
| http://www.aumha.org/
| http://dundats.mvps.org/AutoIt/default.aspx

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[PCR]

thanatoid wrote:
| "PCR" > wrote in
| :
|
|
|> Closing a program with Ctrl-Alt-Del won't necessarily free
|> resources, because the program may not do its housekeeping
|> regarding the resource heaps that way. The program needs to
|> tell the system that heap space has been freed. If a
|> program has hung & cannot be closed normally, possibly
|> TaskInfo 2000 will get it to close in an orderly manner. I
|> know EndItAll2 will first send a close request to a hung
|> program. If it still fails to close, then it will be killed
|> the way Ctrl-Alt-Del kills them.
|
| Yeah, I have EndItAll as well but I only use it to end it all,
| for whatever reason.
|
| I think the "always unload DLL's" reg. key is helping, maybe,
| perhaps...

I doubt a .dll itself sets up & uses resources. I guess it could
possibly have an effect on resources to have a program unload its .dlls
when it closes. Maybe the presence of a .dll in RAM or on some list is
itself a kind of resource that will increase when the .dll is unloaded.
I can't really say for sure.

But I see in your experiments with Buffalo you really haven't been able
to reproduce the original problem-- very good!

|> The more RAM, the less chance there will be a need to use
|> the swap file. Looks like "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" is
|> meant to revert to Win95 determinations as to when to write
|> to the swap file...
|>
|> • INFO: The Windows 98 PageFile_Call_Async_Manager Service
|> (223294) - If this entry is absent from System.ini, the
|> default setting
|> for ConservativeSwapfileUsage is 1 for Windows 95, and 0
|> (zero) for Windows 98. When Windows 98 performs
|> asynchronous ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223294
|
| This is just too confusing...

Yep.

|> • 125 tips for Windows 98
|> (835834) - ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. This could reduce
|> the amount of
|> disk swapping Windows does, and so speed up your system..
|> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835834
|
| This makes sense, and with 1GB RAM on 98SELite it was not
| surprising that the swap file never gets touched. That's why I
| set it to 200MB instead of 2.5 GB ;-)

Well, I know I've experienced a horrible crash after entering a Windows
DOS session with the swap file turned off, i.e., it had a size of zero.
Therefore, the smaller you make a maximum, the more likely you will
experience a crash-- if/when there is a demand for RAM that doesn't
exist. I only have 384 MB total.

|>|> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources.
|>|> And I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe
|>|> it reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods,
|>|> which I think spent less time anticipating the size to
|>|> make the swap file. This is probably what you want to
|>|> do-- instead of setting the max/min to the same number!
|
| Well, the ONLY way to stop Win 9x from constantly checking and
| adjusting the swap file size is to set it to be the same size
| and tell Windows to lay off. That was one of the first tweaks
| for 9x I read, and I have stuck to it. It makes sense, has
| worked perfectly for me for 14 years, and anyway, with 1GB of
| RAM it appears to become irrelevant - on THIS machine anyway, it
| might be different with a 4GHz dual core...

Well, careful with how many DOS windows you open, especially if you set
a small max. Each one is a virtual machine! You could have a horrible
crash!

|>| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about
|>| 2.5 (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it
|>| anyway :-) , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of
|>| some habits.
|>
|> It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have a
|> horrible crash that way!
|
| Well, I never have in 14 years :-)

They said it's a rare circumstance.

|> That's why I discontinued the
|> practice, myself-- though it actually is suggested in
|> Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub), pp.1041-1042! It
|> says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space. Then,
|> set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x installed RAM.
|> That was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant to reduce
|> certain swap file processing activity-- which I guess is
|> re-sizing decision making.
|
| See above why I set it to 200MB. It could be 50 MB, I am sure.

The closer you get to zero-- the less likely you may get another 14
years!

|>| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way
|>| to set it up doesn't help either!
|>
|> Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has
|> suggested.
|
| I have. The results were not as clear as one would like them to
| be, see my reply to him.

I saw. Looks like you haven't been able to reproduce the problem. That's
good enough.

| <SNIP>
|
|> It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file & disk
|> cache settings, because they may have an effect on your
|> browser's doings.
|
| How? I see no direct relation.

A program may check for those things & do things differently that cause
it to use a different number of resources.

|> Also, check the size of your TIF storage
|> area-- maybe make it larger or even smaller.
|
| I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that would be
| the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they are not
| adjustable in any manner that I am aware of, although I have NOT
| read the FFox help file, but it is Opera that seems the bigger
| culprit anyway... Ob1 uses RAM for cache and needless to say has
| NO problems with 1GB... (I used to sometimes hang the machine
| with 10 Ob1 windows open when I was using my 166 with 64 MB of
| RAM...) It really is the perfect browser, and if those maniacs
| didn't develop Java and flash it would be the ONLY browser
| necessary... And we would all waste a lot less time on mostly
| futile attempts to recapture our past and youth, which is how I
| largely see the use of FLV (if not most of the web) by anyone
| over 40.

I see Etal supplied good info on that.

|>|> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
|>|> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
|>|> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System
|>|> Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK".
|
| I used it yesterday for 2 hours, it showed that the swap file
| was never touched, so I turned it off. I find most of its other
| info incomprehensible and I am too old to learn what it is.

I agree there are a lot of items & one often must guess what some of
them mean.

|> May as well
|>|> take "Resource Meter", too.
|
| I have it in the "sys utils" subsection of my start menu, and I
| have been using it when doing these experiments. See reply to
| Buffalo.

I saw. Very good.

|>|> Now, go through the menus and
|>|> at least have it display
|>|>
|>|> (a) Swap file in use.
|>|> (b) Swap file size.
|>|> (c) Swappable memory.
|>|> (d) Unused physical memory.
|>|> (e) Allocated memory.
|>|> (f) Disk cache size.
|>|> (g) Locked memory
|>|> (h) Other memory
|>|> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
|>|> (j) Kernel Threads
|
| I'll have to look up Kernel threads on Wiki. Please don't waste
| time explaining it - you have been far too helpful as it is.

Uh-huh.

|>|> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
|>|> Size before/after the problem begins.
|
| As I said, swap file use has stayed at 0 I believe since I put
| in the I GB of RAM 3 months ago.
| It didn't occur to me to monitor Disk Cache, I understand that's
| what the
|
| [vcache]
| MinFileCache=0
| MaxFileCache=524288
|
| section applies to. But my free RAM has never gone below 400MB
| or so since I've had the 1 GB stick.

I should go for 1 GB myself. With 384 MB RAM, I find I can cause a small
swap file usage by doing an OE compact of folders. It happens during the
compacting of...

G:\Outlook Express Store>dir
Directory of G:\Outlook Express Store
MYSENT~1 DBX 120,237,632 12-30-08 6:40p My Sent Items.dbx

|>| I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much
|>| trouble describing the procedure, but I don't think I can
|>| muster up the patience to go through such a process. Also,
|>| I have played with System Monitor and I find it 50%
|>| mystifying and 50% annoying. I just LOVE it when you click
|>| the ? on "page discards" and it tells you "shows page
|>| discards", or something. How f*g helpful.
|>|
|>| So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.
|>
|> That was basically all written long ago, not just now. I
|> suspect disk cache involvement in the resources problem. I
|> know mine grows very large when I get a resources crash
|> over a different matter.
|
| OK, I'll start monitoring it. AT this moment (1 browser window,
| Xnews, few small utils) it is using under 60KB. LRU cache
| recycles = 0.
|
| Any particular other disk cache graphs I should be looking at?
|
| (Example of "MS help": "Minimum cache pages => explain =>
| Minimum number of disk cache pages." ALRIGHT!!!)

That's a well-named item!

|> Resource Meter puts up a warning of its own. Unfortunately,
|> sometimes that warning is hidden under another window! But
|> its icon in the Tray also will turn red-- if only one can
|> remember to look at it once in a while!
|
| There is no setting for WHEN it will turn yellow or red... But I
| have noticed it doing so on rare occasions... I must say I
| prefer FreeRam XP telling me I am under 20% on 1 or more of the
| 3...

Alright.

|>|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
|>|> they get. A reboot would clear it
|
| That's what I meant before when I said no way to cure sys res
| except Ctl-Alt-Del... It was a slight simplification and a weak
| attempt at a joke.

Alright. Ha ha, yea, funny.

|>|> but, obviously, it's
|>|> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have
|>|> "Resource Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
|>|> from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove
|>|> Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check
|>|> System Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
|>|> "System Monitor", too.
|
| Like I said, they're very easy to start manually... I sort of
| hate to take the 'decisive" step of putting it in startup...
| Like admitting I have a horrible unsolvable problem I have to
| watch forever from now on...

I have Resource Meter in Startup & System Monitor in the QuickLaunch
bar.

|>| Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and
|>| 77%. Not bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but
|>| I haven't gotten around to going to a site with it yet
|>| (trying to find the link as I write this!). Not bad.
|>
|> Those are respectable figures. That 1st figure -- system
|> resources -- is always set to the lower of the other two.
|> It has no separate meaning of its own. My own figures right
|> now are 50% System, 50% User, 70% GDI. I'm online in this
|> NG & have done some browsing.
|
| I'm at 51, 51, 64. About the same activity as you.

I am 54, 54, 57 right now.

|>| (A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
|>| above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There
|>| were NO images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone
|>| through.)
|>
|> Keep it up. Check those resources after going to each of
|> your favorite sites. Do they increase after closing a site?
|> Try closing the browser too to see whether it will free
|> them.
|
| Yes, they go up noticeably. When I closed almost everything they
| went up into the 70-80% area.
| I have not determined for sure whether the "always unload DLL's"
| is helping here or not... That's the next (and possibly last)
| test... The basic result of the test, although not terribly
| conclusive, in fact not at all conclusive, is what I thought
| from the beginning, that when I go to very graphic-rich web
| pages with the big browsers or use an image browser running
| through many photos, that eats a lot of GDI's.

I think that makes sense.

| I tried something called RegTool (http://www.RegTool.com/) since
| it claims to fix Opera crashing with the flash plugin... The
| GDI's went down below 20 when I was running it, and went up to
| 75% when I closed it. That was weird. Have not found out yet
| whether it /did/ anything, I wanted to reply to you guys first.

That's one greedy app!

| <SNIP>
|
|>|> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
|>|> went up after switching to an LSD
|>|
|>| ahem...
|>
|> Yikes! I only did that once-- & I didn't like it!
|
| My head is messed up enough as it is... But I used to know
| people who ate it like candy... It seems most people either take
| i once or a LOT... Then there are those poor *******s like Peter
| Green or Syd Barrett... I have a feeling I would have ended up
| like them...

I was lucky for a bad experience on the 1st try!

|>| Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of
|>| anti-LCD monitor information.
|>
|> No-- I have more GDI resources with this LCD monitor than I
|> had with its non-LCD predecessors!
|
| I misread - I am VERY prejudiced against LCD's... I understood
| that USE of GDI's has gone up.
| Frankly, I can NOT figure out what the monitor type could have
| to do with GDI's.

Alright.

| <SNIP>
|
|>|> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
|>|> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32,
|>|> Software Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run,
|>|> MSConfig, Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete
|>|> from the Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may
|>|> maintain multiple configurations of items to include in
|>|> the Group.
|
| StartUpChanger 2000 does the same, it is VERY good. I would say
| I have about 75% of what Windows wants me to run ticked NOT to
| run. (WHAT the heck is WinDVDPatch/CTHelper? I don't even have a
| DVD drive!)
|
| I am also not afraid to go into the registry and remove "run"
| type stuff.

Alright. You do well with that.

| <SNIP>
|
|> Understandable. Sounds like only the GDI Resources face a
|> 64K limitation now. However, the heap or list that
|> comprises the User Resources, although it can address more
|> RAM for its "elements"-- still has a size issue. When space
|> runs out for entries in the list (pointers to the
|> elements)-- one is out of resources!
|
| Sorry, I don't /quite/ understand that (will read few more times
| ;-)
| Gotta look up "heap" on Wiki as well.

Alright. That's about the best I can do understanding it myself.

| Thanks /again/!
| t.
|
|
| --
| "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
| Anais Nin

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[PCR]

thanatoid wrote:
| "PCR" > wrote in
| :
|
|
|> Closing a program with Ctrl-Alt-Del won't necessarily free
|> resources, because the program may not do its housekeeping
|> regarding the resource heaps that way. The program needs to
|> tell the system that heap space has been freed. If a
|> program has hung & cannot be closed normally, possibly
|> TaskInfo 2000 will get it to close in an orderly manner. I
|> know EndItAll2 will first send a close request to a hung
|> program. If it still fails to close, then it will be killed
|> the way Ctrl-Alt-Del kills them.
|
| Yeah, I have EndItAll as well but I only use it to end it all,
| for whatever reason.
|
| I think the "always unload DLL's" reg. key is helping, maybe,
| perhaps...

I doubt a .dll itself sets up & uses resources. I guess it could
possibly have an effect on resources to have a program unload its .dlls
when it closes. Maybe the presence of a .dll in RAM or on some list is
itself a kind of resource that will increase when the .dll is unloaded.
I can't really say for sure.

But I see in your experiments with Buffalo you really haven't been able
to reproduce the original problem-- very good!

|> The more RAM, the less chance there will be a need to use
|> the swap file. Looks like "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" is
|> meant to revert to Win95 determinations as to when to write
|> to the swap file...
|>
|> • INFO: The Windows 98 PageFile_Call_Async_Manager Service
|> (223294) - If this entry is absent from System.ini, the
|> default setting
|> for ConservativeSwapfileUsage is 1 for Windows 95, and 0
|> (zero) for Windows 98. When Windows 98 performs
|> asynchronous ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223294
|
| This is just too confusing...

Yep.

|> • 125 tips for Windows 98
|> (835834) - ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1. This could reduce
|> the amount of
|> disk swapping Windows does, and so speed up your system..
|> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835834
|
| This makes sense, and with 1GB RAM on 98SELite it was not
| surprising that the swap file never gets touched. That's why I
| set it to 200MB instead of 2.5 GB ;-)

Well, I know I've experienced a horrible crash after entering a Windows
DOS session with the swap file turned off, i.e., it had a size of zero.
Therefore, the smaller you make a maximum, the more likely you will
experience a crash-- if/when there is a demand for RAM that doesn't
exist. I only have 384 MB total.

|>|> But I'm not sure it has anything to do with resources.
|>|> And I can't quite recall what it is supposed to do! Maybe
|>|> it reverts swap file handling back to Win95 methods,
|>|> which I think spent less time anticipating the size to
|>|> make the swap file. This is probably what you want to
|>|> do-- instead of setting the max/min to the same number!
|
| Well, the ONLY way to stop Win 9x from constantly checking and
| adjusting the swap file size is to set it to be the same size
| and tell Windows to lay off. That was one of the first tweaks
| for 9x I read, and I have stuck to it. It makes sense, has
| worked perfectly for me for 14 years, and anyway, with 1GB of
| RAM it appears to become irrelevant - on THIS machine anyway, it
| might be different with a 4GHz dual core...

Well, careful with how many DOS windows you open, especially if you set
a small max. Each one is a virtual machine! You could have a horrible
crash!

|>| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max, about
|>| 2.5 (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever uses it
|>| anyway :-) , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get rid of
|>| some habits.
|>
|> It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have a
|> horrible crash that way!
|
| Well, I never have in 14 years :-)

They said it's a rare circumstance.

|> That's why I discontinued the
|> practice, myself-- though it actually is suggested in
|> Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub), pp.1041-1042! It
|> says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space. Then,
|> set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x installed RAM.
|> That was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant to reduce
|> certain swap file processing activity-- which I guess is
|> re-sizing decision making.
|
| See above why I set it to 200MB. It could be 50 MB, I am sure.

The closer you get to zero-- the less likely you may get another 14
years!

|>| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT way
|>| to set it up doesn't help either!
|>
|> Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has
|> suggested.
|
| I have. The results were not as clear as one would like them to
| be, see my reply to him.

I saw. Looks like you haven't been able to reproduce the problem. That's
good enough.

| <SNIP>
|
|> It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file & disk
|> cache settings, because they may have an effect on your
|> browser's doings.
|
| How? I see no direct relation.

A program may check for those things & do things differently that cause
it to use a different number of resources.

|> Also, check the size of your TIF storage
|> area-- maybe make it larger or even smaller.
|
| I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that would be
| the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they are not
| adjustable in any manner that I am aware of, although I have NOT
| read the FFox help file, but it is Opera that seems the bigger
| culprit anyway... Ob1 uses RAM for cache and needless to say has
| NO problems with 1GB... (I used to sometimes hang the machine
| with 10 Ob1 windows open when I was using my 166 with 64 MB of
| RAM...) It really is the perfect browser, and if those maniacs
| didn't develop Java and flash it would be the ONLY browser
| necessary... And we would all waste a lot less time on mostly
| futile attempts to recapture our past and youth, which is how I
| largely see the use of FLV (if not most of the web) by anyone
| over 40.

I see Etal supplied good info on that.

|>|> Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If
|>|> not, get it from "START, Settings, Control Panel,
|>|> Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System
|>|> Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK".
|
| I used it yesterday for 2 hours, it showed that the swap file
| was never touched, so I turned it off. I find most of its other
| info incomprehensible and I am too old to learn what it is.

I agree there are a lot of items & one often must guess what some of
them mean.

|> May as well
|>|> take "Resource Meter", too.
|
| I have it in the "sys utils" subsection of my start menu, and I
| have been using it when doing these experiments. See reply to
| Buffalo.

I saw. Very good.

|>|> Now, go through the menus and
|>|> at least have it display
|>|>
|>|> (a) Swap file in use.
|>|> (b) Swap file size.
|>|> (c) Swappable memory.
|>|> (d) Unused physical memory.
|>|> (e) Allocated memory.
|>|> (f) Disk cache size.
|>|> (g) Locked memory
|>|> (h) Other memory
|>|> (i) Kernel Processor Usage
|>|> (j) Kernel Threads
|
| I'll have to look up Kernel threads on Wiki. Please don't waste
| time explaining it - you have been far too helpful as it is.

Uh-huh.

|>|> Keep an eye especially on Swap File in Use & Disk Cache
|>|> Size before/after the problem begins.
|
| As I said, swap file use has stayed at 0 I believe since I put
| in the I GB of RAM 3 months ago.
| It didn't occur to me to monitor Disk Cache, I understand that's
| what the
|
| [vcache]
| MinFileCache=0
| MaxFileCache=524288
|
| section applies to. But my free RAM has never gone below 400MB
| or so since I've had the 1 GB stick.

I should go for 1 GB myself. With 384 MB RAM, I find I can cause a small
swap file usage by doing an OE compact of folders. It happens during the
compacting of...

G:\Outlook Express Store>dir
Directory of G:\Outlook Express Store
MYSENT~1 DBX 120,237,632 12-30-08 6:40p My Sent Items.dbx

|>| I feel /terrible/ saying this after you went to so much
|>| trouble describing the procedure, but I don't think I can
|>| muster up the patience to go through such a process. Also,
|>| I have played with System Monitor and I find it 50%
|>| mystifying and 50% annoying. I just LOVE it when you click
|>| the ? on "page discards" and it tells you "shows page
|>| discards", or something. How f*g helpful.
|>|
|>| So I have basically decided to forget about its existence.
|>
|> That was basically all written long ago, not just now. I
|> suspect disk cache involvement in the resources problem. I
|> know mine grows very large when I get a resources crash
|> over a different matter.
|
| OK, I'll start monitoring it. AT this moment (1 browser window,
| Xnews, few small utils) it is using under 60KB. LRU cache
| recycles = 0.
|
| Any particular other disk cache graphs I should be looking at?
|
| (Example of "MS help": "Minimum cache pages => explain =>
| Minimum number of disk cache pages." ALRIGHT!!!)

That's a well-named item!

|> Resource Meter puts up a warning of its own. Unfortunately,
|> sometimes that warning is hidden under another window! But
|> its icon in the Tray also will turn red-- if only one can
|> remember to look at it once in a while!
|
| There is no setting for WHEN it will turn yellow or red... But I
| have noticed it doing so on rare occasions... I must say I
| prefer FreeRam XP telling me I am under 20% on 1 or more of the
| 3...

Alright.

|>|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
|>|> they get. A reboot would clear it
|
| That's what I meant before when I said no way to cure sys res
| except Ctl-Alt-Del... It was a slight simplification and a weak
| attempt at a joke.

Alright. Ha ha, yea, funny.

|>|> but, obviously, it's
|>|> better to cleanup your Startup Group. Do you have
|>|> "Resource Meter" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
|>|> from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove
|>|> Programs, Windows Setup tab, D-Clk System Tools, check
|>|> System Resource Meter, OK, Apply, OK". May as well take
|>|> "System Monitor", too.
|
| Like I said, they're very easy to start manually... I sort of
| hate to take the 'decisive" step of putting it in startup...
| Like admitting I have a horrible unsolvable problem I have to
| watch forever from now on...

I have Resource Meter in Startup & System Monitor in the QuickLaunch
bar.

|>| Right now FreeRAM XP is telling me I have 65%, 65%, and
|>| 77%. Not bad. I have XNews running, Firefox is loaded but
|>| I haven't gotten around to going to a site with it yet
|>| (trying to find the link as I write this!). Not bad.
|>
|> Those are respectable figures. That 1st figure -- system
|> resources -- is always set to the lower of the other two.
|> It has no separate meaning of its own. My own figures right
|> now are 50% System, 50% User, 70% GDI. I'm online in this
|> NG & have done some browsing.
|
| I'm at 51, 51, 64. About the same activity as you.

I am 54, 54, 57 right now.

|>| (A little later, I have 2 FFox windows open in addition to
|>| above, and I am at 56%, 56%, 69%. Still not bad. There
|>| were NO images to speak of on any of the pages I have gone
|>| through.)
|>
|> Keep it up. Check those resources after going to each of
|> your favorite sites. Do they increase after closing a site?
|> Try closing the browser too to see whether it will free
|> them.
|
| Yes, they go up noticeably. When I closed almost everything they
| went up into the 70-80% area.
| I have not determined for sure whether the "always unload DLL's"
| is helping here or not... That's the next (and possibly last)
| test... The basic result of the test, although not terribly
| conclusive, in fact not at all conclusive, is what I thought
| from the beginning, that when I go to very graphic-rich web
| pages with the big browsers or use an image browser running
| through many photos, that eats a lot of GDI's.

I think that makes sense.

| I tried something called RegTool (http://www.RegTool.com/) since
| it claims to fix Opera crashing with the flash plugin... The
| GDI's went down below 20 when I was running it, and went up to
| 75% when I closed it. That was weird. Have not found out yet
| whether it /did/ anything, I wanted to reply to you guys first.

That's one greedy app!

| <SNIP>
|
|>|> control, except by prayer maybe. I know my GDI resources
|>|> went up after switching to an LSD
|>|
|>| ahem...
|>
|> Yikes! I only did that once-- & I didn't like it!
|
| My head is messed up enough as it is... But I used to know
| people who ate it like candy... It seems most people either take
| i once or a LOT... Then there are those poor *******s like Peter
| Green or Syd Barrett... I have a feeling I would have ended up
| like them...

I was lucky for a bad experience on the 1st try!

|>| Very interesting,. Another argument for my arsenal of
|>| anti-LCD monitor information.
|>
|> No-- I have more GDI resources with this LCD monitor than I
|> had with its non-LCD predecessors!
|
| I misread - I am VERY prejudiced against LCD's... I understood
| that USE of GDI's has gone up.
| Frankly, I can NOT figure out what the monitor type could have
| to do with GDI's.

Alright.

| <SNIP>
|
|>|> http://www.pcmag.com/ 's StartUpCop has "undo", and it is
|>|> more than a combination of "START, Run, MSInfo32,
|>|> Software Environment, Startup Programs" and "START, Run,
|>|> MSConfig, Startup tab". It can even do a permanent delete
|>|> from the Startup Group. This is configurable, and one may
|>|> maintain multiple configurations of items to include in
|>|> the Group.
|
| StartUpChanger 2000 does the same, it is VERY good. I would say
| I have about 75% of what Windows wants me to run ticked NOT to
| run. (WHAT the heck is WinDVDPatch/CTHelper? I don't even have a
| DVD drive!)
|
| I am also not afraid to go into the registry and remove "run"
| type stuff.

Alright. You do well with that.

| <SNIP>
|
|> Understandable. Sounds like only the GDI Resources face a
|> 64K limitation now. However, the heap or list that
|> comprises the User Resources, although it can address more
|> RAM for its "elements"-- still has a size issue. When space
|> runs out for entries in the list (pointers to the
|> elements)-- one is out of resources!
|
| Sorry, I don't /quite/ understand that (will read few more times
| ;-)
| Gotta look up "heap" on Wiki as well.

Alright. That's about the best I can do understanding it myself.

| Thanks /again/!
| t.
|
|
| --
| "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
| Anais Nin

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

[thanatoid]

"PCR" > wrote in
:

<SNIP>

>| This makes sense, and with 1GB RAM on 98SELite it was not
>| surprising that the swap file never gets touched. That's
>| why I set it to 200MB instead of 2.5 GB ;-)
>
> Well, I know I've experienced a horrible crash after
> entering a Windows DOS session with the swap file turned
> off, i.e., it had a size of zero.

Just a guess, but it probably only wanted 120MB if not
120KB!!!... When you're REALLY bored you could do a test
starting with 10MB (or KB???) and going up by 10 with each
reboot...

> Therefore, the smaller
> you make a maximum, the more likely you will experience a
> crash-- if/when there is a demand for RAM that doesn't
> exist. I only have 384 MB total.

Well. I did as much as I could, and the biggest memory users
create their own temp memory spaces (music editing programs).
I'll take the risk. I don't know what your machine is, but RAM
is so cheap now... Even the lowly thanatoid got 1GB!

<SNIP>

> Well, careful with how many DOS windows you open,
> especially if you set a small max. Each one is a virtual
> machine! You could have a horrible crash!

I don't do any DOS on this machine. Correction - BEFORE entering
Win98 I sometimes use XTGold for DOS or run Scandisk on the
entire drive, but then I always reboot.

You may recall about 5-6 weeks ago I posted about making my 14.5
year old 166/96MB a DOS machine and not being able to get sound
(it still had W95B installed). After weeks of ****ing around
with Creative files and drivers, I finally wiped the drive,
installed DOS 6.21 and ran the Creative DOS setup for my card
and everything works. The I added partitions, etc. Runs great.

>|>| I don't know. I've had the swap file set to min=max,
>|>| about 2.5 (this time it's just 200MB since nothing ever
>|>| uses it anyway :-) , ever since 1998 or so. Hard to get
>|>| rid of some habits.
>|>
>|> It has been said, in a rare circumstance-- you could have
>|> a horrible crash that way!
>|
>| Well, I never have in 14 years :-)
>
> They said it's a rare circumstance.

So as I said, I'll take my chances. Anyway, what's the big deal?
You reboot and that's it. Nothing in my life has any importance
whatsoever including whatever I might lose in a crash.

>|> That's why I discontinued the
>|> practice, myself-- though it actually is suggested in
>|> Windows 98 Secrets (Livingston/Straub), pp.1041-1042! It
>|> says to defrag the drive first for contiguous space.
>|> Then, set both the max & min to same size of 2.5 x
>|> installed RAM. That was nearly 1 GB for me! This is meant
>|> to reduce certain swap file processing activity-- which I
>|> guess is re-sizing decision making.
>|
>| See above why I set it to 200MB. It could be 50 MB, I am
>| sure.
>
> The closer you get to zero-- the less likely you may get
> another 14 years!

Well, it's at 100MB and an untouched virgin.

>|>| And EVERYBODY having a different opinion on the RIGHT
>|>| way to set it up doesn't help either!
>|>
>|> Maybe try the easily reversible experiments Buffalo has
>|> suggested.
>|
>| I have. The results were not as clear as one would like
>| them to be, see my reply to him.
>
> I saw. Looks like you haven't been able to reproduce the
> problem. That's good enough.

I guess. I /hate/ things that come and go.

>| <SNIP>
>|
>|> It could still be worthwhile to play with swap file &
>|> disk cache settings, because they may have an effect on
>|> your browser's doings.
>|
>| How? I see no direct relation.
>
> A program may check for those things & do things
> differently that cause it to use a different number of
> resources.

Frankly, I don't remember the swap file being used on this 2GHz
machine even when it only had 256 MB of RAM... and I /know/ it
hasn't been used since I put in the 1GB stick...

>|> Also, check the size of your TIF storage
>|> area-- maybe make it larger or even smaller.
>|
>| I was wondering what TIF meant... Well, in my case that
>| would be the cache directories for FFox and Opera - they
>| are not adjustable in any manner that I am aware of,
>| although I have NOT read the FFox help file, but it is
>| Opera that seems the bigger culprit anyway... Ob1 uses RAM
>| for cache and needless to say has NO problems with 1GB...
>| (I used to sometimes hang the machine with 10 Ob1 windows
>| open when I was using my 166 with 64 MB of RAM...) It
>| really is the perfect browser, and if those maniacs didn't
>| develop Java and flash it would be the ONLY browser
>| necessary... And we would all waste a lot less time on
>| mostly futile attempts to recapture our past and youth,
>| which is how I largely see the use of FLV (if not most of
>| the web) by anyone over 40.
>
> I see Etal supplied good info on that.

Yes, it was superduper excellent and useful. And he put in two
lines from a pre-mental collapse Syd Barrett song!

> I should go for 1 GB myself.

As I suggested a few inches above... Although 512 will do just
fine too...

> With 384 MB RAM, I find I can
> cause a small swap file usage by doing an OE compact of
> folders. It happens during the compacting of...

AAARGHHH! You use OE???????????? Shame!

> G:\Outlook Express Store>dir
> Directory of G:\Outlook Express Store
> MYSENT~1 DBX 120,237,632 12-30-08 6:40p My Sent
> Items.dbx

>| Any particular other disk cache graphs I should be looking
>| at?
>|
>| (Example of "MS help": "Minimum cache pages => explain =>
>| Minimum number of disk cache pages." ALRIGHT!!!)
>
> That's a well-named item!

GRRRR.
Sigh.

>|>|> Perhaps put Resource Meter in your Tray, to see how low
>|>|> they get. A reboot would clear it
>|
>| That's what I meant before when I said no way to cure sys
>| res except Ctl-Alt-Del... It was a slight simplification
>| and a weak attempt at a joke.
>
> Alright. Ha ha, yea, funny.

(laughing out loud)

> I have Resource Meter in Startup & System Monitor in the
> QuickLaunch bar.

I have seen SO many "quick start" programs, some of which seem
really quite nice and save icon-used RAM and everything, but
it's a job I just never seem to be able to get around to...

I just have a well-configured logical start bar, with few
levels, and an icon toggler when I get tired of seeing them or
resources run low (which really has not happened except when
this thread started... Maybe this house was temporarily
possessed...)

<SNIP>

>| I tried something called RegTool (http://www.RegTool.com/)
>| since it claims to fix Opera crashing with the flash
>| plugin... The GDI's went down below 20 when I was running
>| it, and went up to 75% when I closed it. That was weird.
>| Have not found out yet whether it /did/ anything, I wanted
>| to reply to you guys first.
>
> That's one greedy app!

I never saw anything like it! AND to add insult to injury it
appears it won't DO anything until you pay for it - it auto
started next time I booted and told me I still have 322 problems
and suggested I buy it right away (I WILL admit it was good at
finding the "problems" - but the problems were /really
minuscule/ - nothing even approaching important. It's off the
machine now. I run 2 really good reg cleaners and they might
well find the same "problems" or they just don't consider them
important enough... Haven;t run them in a while... AFA the
RegTool folks, they may like to scare people a little...

<SNIP>

>| My head is messed up enough as it is... But I used to know
>| people who ate it like candy... It seems most people
>| either take i once or a LOT... Then there are those poor
>| *******s like Peter Green or Syd Barrett... I have a
>| feeling I would have ended up like them...
>
> I was lucky for a bad experience on the 1st try!

Yes, many people were. You were also lucky for your 1st
experience not to have put you in an institution for 6 years or
for life... It didn't happen to MANY, but it DID happen to quite
a few...

Syd Barrett (one of his pals from Pink Floyd slipped him some in
a drink) /never/ recovered. Sad, he was a great artist. Peter
Green (/original/ Fleetwood Mac founder) seems to have, after
20+ years!

<SNIP>

Thanks /again/.

--
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin