Mystery problem...

[upwestside]

I am experiencing a problem that has become quite a mystery to me. I have a new Lenovo laptop that is running Vista 32-bit home edition and IE7. I have 2G of RAM. I conduct extensive searches on the web with at least two windows of IE running and at least four tabs in each window. At the same time, I web conference with up to three people at any one time.

The problem I am experiencing is that when I reach a certain threshhold (about three open IE windows with approximately five tabs in each and two web conferences), the system won't allow me to open up any more IE windows when I attempt to do so. When I click on IE, nothing happens. To aggravate matters, when I close out all the IE windows, web conferences and any other programs I may have running (presumably to free up memory), I will not be able to open up ANY application or program when I attempt to do so. Sometimes, an application will open but I will experience problems with the program such as drop-down menus not working or it seems like the program only partly loads.

I've ruled out a virus or spyware. I have run multiple virus and spyware scans and nothing was found. I've had the laptop for about 6 months but just recently started using it in the manner I described.

I am at my wits end trying to figure out what is wrong. Any suggestions?

[cluberti]

This is usually a desktop heap issue, not memory or process space. The symptoms you are describing are consistent with exhaustion of desktop heap.

You can modify it by changing a registry value:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems

Value: Windows

By default, the value will be something like:

%SystemRoot%\system32\csrss.exe ObjectDirectory=\Windows SharedSection=1024,3072,512 Windows=On SubSystemType=Windows ServerDll=basesrv,1 ServerDll=winsrv:UserServerDllInitialization,3 ServerDll=winsrv:ConServerDllInitialization,2 ProfileControl=Off MaxRequestThreads=16

^^^

(that's all on one line)

I've BOLDED the section you want to change - you will want to modify it so that the current value:

SharedSection=1024,3072,512

is changed to

SharedSection=1024,4096,512

[upwestside]

thank you very much for that information. it definitely was a desktop heap problem. i edited the registry and it helped somewhat. i am able to open about double the amount of windows than before but i still feel the system should be able to open more.

is there a higher value i can insert in that registry string? and is there any repercussions to putting in a bigger value? thank you for your assistance.

[cluberti]

is there a higher value i can insert in that registry string? and is there any repercussions to putting in a bigger value? thank you for your assistance.

Technically, you should be able to increase it up to 8192 (8MB), but remember on 32bit versions of Windows you're borrowing from one kernel resource to increase another. By changing this, you modify how the kernel allocates all other resources, and you could also exhaust session space by increasing interactive 5MB (it's a 20MB pool by default, up to 48MB max if necessary). You should technically be OK, but definitely monitor for other wierdness after making the changes, and revert back if anything "wierd" happens afterwards. It's hard to say what would happen (kernel memory ranges are allocated dynamically, within certain limits, at boot time - so it's impossible to be 100% accurate as to what will happen with an increased session space).

The real issue here is platform - if you're exhausting 4MB of desktop heap space, you need to seriously consider x64 rather than hacking away at x86. By default, x64 versions of Windows have 20MB of desktop heap.