tfrancell
2004-11-30 10:50:48 | As you folks seem to know a lot about computers, do you know of a web page or could you briefly explain what the "Resources" Windows 98 SE is (are) referring to is, and how they can be increased. Can adding RAM increase "resources?"
Ya see, I have an older computer on my home network (PIII 500Mhz, 256 ram, Windows 98 SE) that I only use to "stream" or play "Real Audio" from NPR. Sometimes, I still use it as back-up if I'm fixing or upgrading my current computer. Problem is, they just added an ad for Starbucks before the NPR "Real Audio" starts and I think this has pushed my old computer below the 25% resources level, which in turn, has caused Real Player to freeze up and not play the program I'm trying to hear. And, with all the background stuff I have to run to protect my network (NAV, AdSubtract, Spysweeper, etc.) I need to free some resources.
Any ideas?
Thomas Francell
Marietta, Georgia |
Stephen Brooks
2004-12-19 12:00:55 | I think I replied to this by e-mail some time. Oh here it is> Anyway, as you seem to know a lot about computers, do you know of a web
> page or could you briefly explain what the "Resources" Windows 98 SE is
> (are) referring to is, and how they can be increased. Can adding RAM
> increase "resources?"
Resources are a rather strange idiom of the way Windows 98 works. They
consist of things like window handles and GDI objects, and Win98 was
unfortunately built with limitations on the number of these things you can
have. Often the way I get around this is to make sure I just don't have too
many applications running at once. Certain (badly-coded) applications will
'leak' resources and you'll find if you shut them down and restart you will
get more back. This can include things that are 'services' or appear as
tray icons or even only as things in your Ctrl-Alt-Del list of tasks. So
it's best to do a quick inventory and see out of what you're running, what
you actually need, and what can be restarted.
Some applications might just be "resource hogs" and use loads anyway.
Beware of skinned applications like RealPlayer and others with a lot of 'eye
candy'. Sometimes (though not often) you can configure these things to turn
skinning off or run on a "low resource usage" mode that uses a simpler
design.
BTW, I guess you've found the "Resource Meter" in Win98's system tools that
you can use to monitor the situation? If you haven't got an icon for it in
the start menu, go to "Run..." and type "rsrcmtr".
I am running a P-II-400 quite happily right now (and it's stability has
increased now I've got rid of MSN and use Yahoo instead, as MSN had rather
nasty skins and kept crashing...). I don't actually run any network tasks
in the background apart from a time-sync service, but then again I do have a
hardware firewall built into my router (we have 2 computers on 1 cable
connection), so they aren't really needed. An occasional AdAware sweep
(like every 3 months or whenever my computer seems slow) has cleared me of
spyware.
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