Low USER Resources

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Hi everyone,

I’m running Win98 on a PIII-933MHz with 256 MB of RAM, and I keep getting warnings from my Norton System Doctor that my “USER Resources” are low. Sometimes, when I’ve only got three main applications running (e.g. Word 2k, Outlook 2k, and Quicken), the available USER resources drop as low as 10%. I’m confused — the only thing I know about USER resources is that more open windows take up more USER resources. But shouldn’t a fast system w/ tons of memory like mine be able to handle such a small workload?

Can anyone suggest a way to free up USER resources while multitasking several applications? It’s not like I’m running some supercomputer application!

Thanks in advance for any help,

Erik

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Memory and resources are TWO differt items. Resources is a 64k file that remembers settings for the graphic interface.
Go to ‘Task Manger’ (Ctrl-Alt-Del), you will what is using the resoures. Provide us a list of every listed and some one may be able to help in reducing all of the loading.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Ah – thank you for clarifying that; I assumed memory & USER resources were the same, or related at least. To answer your question, here’s a list of the stuff in my Task Manager right now (which, acc. to Norton Sys Doctor, leaves 25% USER Resources free):

*******************************
University of Chicago

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With ALL of this running, I don’t see where you would have any resources. I would KILL all that you do NOT need. Remember that you ALWAYS need explorer and should have systray running.

You can kill these one by one and make sure that you don’t have any problems, then kill another.

As for Quicken and Opware32 I would kill first. You can stop all of these from load at start up using TweakUI, if you can not find a icon in the StartUp group, or a setting within the program options.

You have a long ways to go to get rid of this stuff.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Thanks for the reply, Dave. I know there is a lot going on there, but my problem is that I don’t know how to prevent some of the programs from running at startup, and some others (like poproxy, motmon, and 3cmlnkw) seem to be related to my DSL connection, which I don’t want to tamper with since it’s finally working flawlessly.

So I guess my questions are:

(1)How do I use TweakUI to prevent some programs from running at startup? I looked through the TweakUI features but didn’t see where I might do that. The HP driver and the OmniPage programs are examples of programs that start automatically but are not in the Startup group and do not have settings that say “do not run on startup”.

(2)What do I do about Windows programs that run automatically, like mdm (machine debug manager)? Is it necessary to run windows?

and (3) how do I prevent some programs like Intellimouse from running without uninstalling them? I sometimes use a mouse instead of my trackball, so I want the Intellimouse wheel functionality.

It’s like death by gnats or something — these little progams are choking my resources but I can’t control them!

Thanks for any and all help.

Erik

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I also don’t know how to do this using Tweakui
But you can control what’s loaded at startup by:
Run msconfig and then selecting/deselecting on the startup tag

but I’d like to know about the tweakui thing – i can’t find anything to do with startup programs

Ken

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My error, I should have said “MSConfig.exe”, Not TweakUI.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I found that when I “dumped” Norton System Doctor(2001) – my resource problems went away – maybe just a coincidence – but then again who really knows? Since I no longer run Norton System Doctor(2001) everything, and I mean EVERYTHING runs a lot smoother and with fewer crashes!

The difference between Genius and Stupidity:
A Genius knows their limits.
- Albert Einstein

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Hi Ed,

I’ve sometimes wondered whether system doctor drags the computer as much as it lightens it. Do you think your resource problem went away, or was it just that the alarm wasn’t there to ring? Maybe I’ll turn System Doctor off for a few days/weeks and see how things go.

Erik

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I have read all the threads here, and I still don’t see an answer as to what do we do if we really want all the things that are in the startup. I would like to know what to do if I want to actually fix this and still use what I want, what kind of computer would I have?
Right now,
I use no screen saver
I don’t use Windows Task Mgr – I calendar my defrags, clean disk, etc., weekly thru Outlook
I turned off Norton’s System Doctor long ago.
I have 256 MB Ram
8GB free on my drive
Windows says my system is configured for optimum performance.
I shut down if I really start getting slow and that usually works
I change my msconfig startup tab and have fiddled with that until I know that the things I have check in there are the things I need to keep things convenient for me.

I am generally running between 54-63% available resources. What computer does this better?

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A computer running WinNT, 2000, or XP won’t have this problem. The OS was designed with much larger resource buckets (User and GDI resources). You won’t have this problem with Any of those OS’s.

There’s a fairly good explaination of what these critters are at here.

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I had a similar problem running Win 98 SE with 256MB of memory. After paring down the startup to the bare minimum, defragging regularly, etc., etc. and still having the system bog down, I decided to disable McAfee. What a difference! I then switched to Norton antivirus 2002, which doesn’t have nearly the effect on system resources–now it stays about 60-70%.

A good web resource for figuring out what can be elminated from startup:
http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/index.htm

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Another reason not to have McAfee on your machine.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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While far from an expert, I have TRIED to use both McAfee and Norton products without any success. In both cases, they literally diasbled my computer and it took days to restore my system to normal. I use ">PC-cillin is rarely mentioned as a alternative to the two big hogs(McAfee and Norton) … anyone know why ?

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With McAfee and Norton making cozy OEM deals with the big computer manufacturers (not to mention their strong relationships with Microsoft), there’s not a lot of room for anyone else. I’m also a big fan of PC-Cillin, and recommend it unconditionally to my clients and use it exclusively on my own boxes. The automatic update process is fantastic and never fails, unlike McAfee’s.

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