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Is this the holy grail to solving windows-out-of-resources bugs?

Screenshot - 7_26_2007 , 9_39_41 PM_thumb.png
This was posted on Ed Bott's blog today, and it talks about Vista but i think this is applicable for Win2k and Windows XP as well.  I have run into this problem before and it's caused me no end of pain when it happens (sometimes you don't even realize this is the cause but strange things start happening to your computer like programs refuse to open).  I am going to try this right away and i'm excited about it.

After opening a large number of programs and windows, you try to launch a new program or open a new browser tab or even switch back to an already running program and instead:
  • You get a strange “out of memory” message, despite the fact that you’re using only a fraction of the RAM installed on your system.
  • The window opens but its contents refuse to load.
  • The window opens, but menus are missing, dialog boxes are empty, or buttons don’t work.
...
The problem, as it turns out, is as old as the Windows NT family. I’ve found references to this issue that date back to the mid-1990s and Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5. The fix for Vista, just as for those much older versions of Windows, involves editing a key in the Windows Registry.

First the problem: Windows sets aside a blob of system memory called the desktop heap, which it uses to store user interface objects such as windows, menus, and hooks. The Microsoft Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting Blog offers a dense, but still readable explication of the problem and why it occurs (it’s a two-part series: read the Desktop Heap Overview first and if your eyes haven’t glazed over read the shorter Desktop Heap Part 2 for details that are specific to 64–bit Windows, systems with 3GB of RAM, and Windows Vista).

The fix for 32–bit Windows Vista is simple: The interactive desktop heap size needs to be bumped up to a value greater than its default setting of 3072KB.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=269

posted by mouser donate to mouser
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