[comp.windows.ms] "System Resources" Meaning?

bruce@ssc-vax.UUCP (Bruce Stock) (12/14/90)

Can anyone explain what the "System Resources xx %" metric relates to?  It
is displayed in the ProgMan-Help-About dialog box.  When System Resources
drop to 3% or less, new applications cant be started, and the system may 
otherwise behave strangely.  I have a well endowed 386, which I assumed
could run loads of applications simultaneously -- but not so, see below:


	Programs loaded and running			Free	Free
							Memory	Sys Res
	_____________________________________________	_____  	______

0.	Program Mgr  ( nothing else running)		7277	80%
1.	Designer #1					7095	67%
2.	Excel #1					6903	50%
3.	Designer #2					6729	37%
4.	Excel #2					6645	24%
5.	Designer #3					6484	13%
6.	Excel #3					6410	0%

After #6 is loaded, no more programs may be started.  And this is with a
system which has 7mb of RAM, 4Mb of Perm Swapfile, and is in 386 enhanced 
mode.  The message given is "Insufficient memory, try closing an 
application", yet the Free memory display shows there is loads of RAM left,
plus the swapfile.  Since Windows 3 implements a virtual memory scheme,
and since these programs are just sitting there (not updating or
recalculating), I am rather surprised.  Using different applications (Excel
and Designer were two of my biggest), more can be loaded before the 
resources dry up, but the end result is always the same.  What's going
on?


regards, Bruce Stock     bruces@atc.boeing.com  uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bruce

richardh@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Richard Hancock) (12/15/90)

As I understand it, "System Resources" are the data segments belonging to
KERNEL, GDI and USER.

Richard.