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demoniac

How much ram should win2k take up ?

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I was wondering how much memory win2k should take up according to task manager. It is about 100meg on startup for me, with just norton antivirus and serv-u running. but sometimes it will just up 130+ after a while even if nothing is running. I have 128 meg of ram and my swap is set at 290meg i think.

 

stephen

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100 sounds awefully high to me. Is this a workstation? Mine boots w/ 78 meg w/ nothing running. If you are running pro or server trying turning off some of the services. Are you sure you don't have anything else running? Seti takes up quite a chunk-o-ram.

Cheers,

Steve

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100MB is really very much!

 

I have an Advanced Server machine with 128MB RAM here, and after startup it barely uses 70MB.

 

I don't have "Indexing Service" installed, and neither do I have a virus scanner running, nor SETI@home or similar programs.

 

If you use Win2k Server or Advanced Server (the option is not available -- and not neccessary -- on Professional), you can open the properties of your LAN connection, and then the properties of the "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" and then choose between 4 different settings:

- "Minimize memory used",

- "Balance",

- "Maximize data throughput for file sharing",

- "Maximize data throughput for network applications".

 

The "Minimize memory used" should spare a large amount of memory, and besides, it oftem remedies CD writing problems (especially buffer underruns) on Server or Advanced Server machines!

 

Otherwise, it's always a good idea to learn what all the services (under Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Services) do, and then disable (i.e. set to "manual" startup) the ones you don't need.

 

In addition, do NEVER EVER use the Active Desktop feature, it's EVIL!!! It eats up your RAM and CPU time en masse!! (It's disabled by default, so if you don't know what I mean, then it's probably nothing to worry about for you.)

 

The list is endless..... learn to know your system, and Win2k, and then you'll know how you can save memory.

 

Especially most of the Norton crap (sorry if I'm disappointing you now) is not worth the RAM it needs. Norton Utilities.... learn to live without them, and you'll be happy! wink

 

Good luck!

 

nova.

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i'm using win2k pro. i went through the services and set the ones i new i didn't need to manual a while back and i'm not using active desktop. i'll try to go shut down more services and see what that does. also if you add up the list of proccesses running in taskmanager the memory does not take up anywhere nearly the amout that the taskmanager is taking. is that normal ??

thanks

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Yes I think that's normal. You forgot the disk cache I bet....

 

How much is the difference between the sum of all running tasks and the total task manager shows on the "Performance" tab?

 

Aside from disabling all types of services (don't do this too excessively!), the next best thing you can do REALLY is to make sure that as few programs as possible are running in the background. That includes the virus scanner, which you shouldn't need as long as you're not on a larger network (LAN party?). Just manually scan files you download from the internet for viruses. No need for a resident background scanner....

 

Other than that, I guess we can't really help you freeing more memory. If you insist on having so and so many programs running on startup, well then you'll have to sacrifice the mem... smile

 

nova.

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While we're on the topic....

 

Why is that when I boot up w/ minimal background programs running, I start with 76 used. However after launching a couple of programs etc. and closing thwem again, the system is usually up to around 90~100. Now this isn't too big of a deal, but I am still curious as to why this happens, and any way to remedy it.

Cheers,

Steve

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Tis memory leakage

 

------------------

He does'nt want to talk anymore, realy, he's done talking, he's leaving the building - That john cusack guy in conair

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Memory leakage? Nonsense....

 

Some badly written apps may have memory leaks (i.e. memory that has been allocated is not freed again by the application), but as soon as the application is terminated (either by closing itself or by "ending" it from task manager, etc.), Win2k frees all the memory that has been associated with the app and that has not been freed yet by the app itself. (But I'm only 99.999% sure on this one! wink )

 

The difference you see between directly after bootup and after starting and closing some apps is simply the disk cache. The disk cache can very well amount up to some dozen MBs.

 

nova.

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