RE: Solving Memory Problems on Windoze

["Richard Combs" <richard.combs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan Emory  wrote: 

> On Win98 2E, I'm using a supplemental memory management 
> software product 
> called FreeMem Pro. <snip lots of useful info>
 
> Since, I believe, FreeMem (or similar memory de-allocation 
> products) also 
> work on Win 2000 and XP platforms, the same procedure might 
> also be useful 
> on those platforms.

I used FreeMem on Win95 and 98 and can vouch for its usefulness and for
Dan's observations about memory leaks and performance degradation over
time. But, my experience with Win2k at work and WinXP Pro at home
suggests that these memory-management problems are largely, if not
wholly, resolved by the newer Win OSes. 

For instance, at work, my Win2k machine has been up for almost 34 days
now (the most recent reboot was to complete an installation). During
that time, I've opened and closed FM, Word, Excel, Outlook, Acrobat,
PSP, and other programs countless times. Specifically in FM, I've
probably opened and closed docs and books over a thousand times. I've
seen no memory leakage or performance degradation. 

One thing I have noticed is that FM doesn't release memory used for docs
when you close them. IOW, the amount of physical memory in use doesn't
go down when I close all open docs in FM. But, when I close FM, the
memory in use returns to what it was before I opened FM, so Win2k
recovers all the memory used by the application. 

Long story short: if you can't upgrade to Win2k or XP, get a memory
manager or reboot regularly; if you can upgrade, do so. 

HTH!
Richard


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