[comp.windows.ms] Out of Resources in Windows3? Summary, long

indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) (05/06/91)

I must thank:

From: dorsai@iear.arts.rpi.edu (gregory d moncreaff)
From: mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah)
From: grantk@manta.NOSC.MIL (Kelly J. Grant)
From: hamilton@nwnexus.WA.COM (Dick Hamilton)
From: Joel Spolsky <spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU>
From: Vesa Komulainen <KTK-VK%finou.oulu.fi@SEARN.SUNET.SE>

for either replying or posting on the subject. In order to keep this
posting as brief as possible, I am not including all their postings
again! Just the facts...

Learnt from you folks that something called 'handles' was the real
resource that Progman/Help/About reports, that these beasts are limited
to 8,192 pieces... that they could run out much before real memory, as
it happened in my case.

I did a test, results follow, I systematically opened up applications
within windows and looked at the Resource figure upon opening and
subsequent closing of the application to get a feel for the resource use
and how well each application returned the resource. Note: the only
tool that measures this, is Progman/Help/About and the accuracy is
rounded to the nearest digit with no real units just %. [Any takers for
a better tool?]

Following the raw numbers, I will have conclusions I drew and a word
about what I got from Microsoft Tech Support on this issue.

Application:		Start	End	Used		Comments

Program Mgr			86	14		All groups closed.
  + 4 icon group	85	85	1
  + 9 icon group	81	81	4
  +11 icon group	78	78	3
  +10 icon group	75	75	3
  +20 icon group	70	70	5
  + 4 icon group	68	68	2		No Resource returned.

Subsequent tests started at this level:

hDC MicroApps with/					(*)StLine is not a uApp.
  System Enhancer	55	59	4		It was in my Wkset so I
  Work Sets			62	3		Let it be.
  Straight Line(*)		64	2
  Close Micro Apps		67	3

I beleive hDC uApps Mgr returns resources... 68-67% could be due to rounding
errors. After uApps Mgr started I began closing each uApp and checking the
Resource until I closed them all. Other uApps checked follow:

hDC uApps (as above)	55
  +Disk Viewer		52	55	3
  +Memory Viewer	54	55	1
  +Font Viewer		54	54	1
  +Desktop		52	54	1 		1 lost somewhere
  Close hDC & stline		67

Restart hDC as above	55
  +Memory Viewer	54
   (Inc. Discardable
    Memory)		54	55	1		This did not reclaim
							any resource as was
							suggested in a response.
  Close hDC & Stline		67

BeckerTools 		32	65	35		2% lost
  again			32	67	33		2% returned
  again			31	65	34		2% lost again
  again			31	65	34		2% lost for good?
							I don't keep it open
							anymore!
4Dos Shell		63	65	2
Command Com		63	65	2
ATM Control Panel	62	65	3
CorelDRAW 2.0		59	65	6		No Data file
PowerPoint 2.0		49	65	16		No Data file
Word 4 Windows 1.1	54	65	11		No Data file
Ventura 3.0 4 windows	62	63	3		2% lost (no data file)
  Again			--	63	-		Sys div/0 error
  Again			60	62	3		2 page document +1 lost
  Again			--	62	-		Sys div/0 error (nodoc)

Excel 3.0		47	62	15		No data file
Microphone II 1.01	55	62	12		No connection

Conclusions: [Mine and mine alone, my employer doesn't pay me for this, and
	      all testing was done on personal time]
	
	Becker Tools and Ventura need to have their code reviewed by those
	who know Windows programming better. So does the code for Program
	Manager. 

	There are no tools out there that measure the restricting resource.
	Watching memory is of little use when bottleneck is elsewhere.

Microsoft Tech support outcome:
	1st required me to get rid of 386Max, PC Tools' cache & ram disk,
	then asked to have files=40 up'd to 100, buffers=5 up'd to 10, use
	himem.sys, smartdrv and ramdrive.

	I did all that it made no change. By then I knew it was futile, thanks
	to you all! Now I will go back and tell them!

Flames > /dev/null. Constructive comments: please e-mail. Hope this exercise
of mine is useful to some of you!

--
iNDRA | indra@amd.com or {ames apple uunet}!amd!indra
      | (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445; Advanced Micro Devices
      | MS 167; Box 3453; 901, Thompson Pl., Sunnyvale, CA 94088

keithp@nwnexus.WA.COM (Keith Pleas) (05/09/91)

In article <1991May6.075011.14338@amd.com> indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) writes:
>Note: the only
>tool that measures this, is Progman/Help/About and the accuracy is
>rounded to the nearest digit with no real units just %. [Any takers for
>a better tool?]

Well, the HEAPWALKER utility that comes with the MS Windows SDK will let
you explore this in greater detail.  FWIW, my understanding is that
Systems Resources is equal to the 64K segment set aside for the global
heap.  I also understand that this relatively small limit will be greatly
increased with Windows 3.1.  I looked into a specific situation where
system resources seemded to disappear when Shelling out to a TPW generated
program from WFW.  I found that the application destroyed itself, but left
some heap memory unrecovered in the User segment.  Also, I am running ATM,
which will increase in size to accomodate additional fonts; some of this
memory is not reclaimed when the application terminates.