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I have developed a severe memory leak.

I notice that with the same two progs running, all of a sudden I have developed a situation where the memory resources continue to go down, down, down until the program crashes.

Not sure what's causing it, but I did install a couple things that may have replaced a couple DLL files.

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I have developed a severe memory leak.

I notice that with the same two progs running, all of a sudden I have developed a situation where the memory resources continue to go down, down, down until the program crashes.

Not sure what's causing it, but I did install a couple things that may have replaced a couple DLL files.

How many programs do u have open when this happens?

What "couple things" did u install?

Did u install SP 2.0 RC3 [before or after 98SE2ME]?

Did u install 98SE2ME [before or after SP 2.0 RC3]?

U may need to (re)install SP 2.0 RC3 and only after that install 98SE2ME.

I don't think WinME DLLs installed by 98SE2ME created this problem, I'm using them for more than 4 years, and never had a memory leak like yours.

SP 2.0 [all editions] modifies your system.ini [found in %windir%] and adds a couple of lines:

[vcache]

MaxFileCache=524288

to make Win98SE compatible with computers with 768 MB or more RAM installed.

You may want to remove [remark with a semicolon ( ; )] this line, and then reboot, see if your problem goes away.

This setting is handled by VCACHE.VXD which by default is contained into VMM32.VXD, but 98SE2ME replaces it with the newer WinME version of VCACHE.VXD into %windir%\SYSTEM\VMM32 , which overrides the ones from within VMM32.VXD.

Try to rename the VCACHE.VXD WinME file [if u intalled 98SE2ME] to let the 1 from within VM32.VXD take over, and then reboot, see if that fixes your problem.

Also:

make sure your programs are the most current versions and they have latest patches/updates installed. Poorly written programs *can* attract memory leaks.

Try to close all programs except DDHELP.EXE, EXPLORER.EXE, KERNEL32.DLL, MSGSRV32.EXE, MPREXE.EXE + MMTASK.TSK. To do this, 1 of the best tools is CoolKill [freeware]:

http://www.prowebsitemanagement.com/downloads/coolkill.zip

Install it and then right-click on its Taskbar tray icon [skull] to see the entire list of open programs/processes/TSRs/services. Select a particular program to close it, then repeat with others (if any).

If u don't like CoolKill, the built-in 3 fingers "salute" [Alt+Ctrl+Del] does the trick too.

Then u can use the built-in 98SE Resource Monitor [RSRCMTR.EXE] found in %windir% to display memory resources.

Other things u can try:

See this excellent guide maintained by a buddy of mine [MS MVP]:

http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.php

More info here:

http://www.mdgx.com/newtip1.htm#THRASH

More stuff:

http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_Demon...mization_01.htm

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I have developed a severe memory leak.

I notice that with the same two progs running, all of a sudden I have developed a situation where the memory resources continue to go down, down, down until the program crashes.

Not sure what's causing it, but I did install a couple things that may have replaced a couple DLL files.

How many programs do u have open when this happens?

What "couple things" did u install?

Did u install SP 2.0 RC3 [before or after 98SE2ME]?

Did u install 98SE2ME [before or after SP 2.0 RC3]?

U may need to (re)install SP 2.0 RC3 and only after that install 98SE2ME.

I don't think WinME DLLs installed by 98SE2ME created this problem, I'm using them for more than 4 years, and never had a memory leak like yours.

SP 2.0 [all editions] modifies your system.ini [found in %windir%] and adds a couple of lines:

[vcache]

MaxFileCache=524288

to make Win98SE compatible with computers with 768 MB or more RAM installed.

You may want to remove [remark with a semicolon ( ; )] this line, and then reboot, see if your problem goes away.

This setting is handled by VCACHE.VXD which by default is contained into VMM32.VXD, but 98SE2ME replaces it with the newer WinME version of VCACHE.VXD into %windir%\SYSTEM\VMM32 , which overrides the ones from within VMM32.VXD.

Try to rename the VCACHE.VXD WinME file [if u intalled 98SE2ME] to let the 1 from within VM32.VXD take over, and then reboot, see if that fixes your problem.

Also:

make sure your programs are the most current versions and they have latest patches/updates installed. Poorly written programs *can* attract memory leaks.

Try to close all programs except DDHELP.EXE, EXPLORER.EXE, KERNEL32.DLL, MSGSRV32.EXE, MPREXE.EXE + MMTASK.TSK. To do this, 1 of the best tools is CoolKill [freeware]:

http://www.prowebsitemanagement.com/downloads/coolkill.zip

Install it and then right-click on its Taskbar tray icon [skull] to see the entire list of open programs/processes/TSRs/services. Select a particular program to close it, then repeat with others (if any).

If u don't like CoolKill, the built-in 3 fingers "salute" [Alt+Ctrl+Del] does the trick too.

Then u can use the built-in 98SE Resource Monitor [RSRCMTR.EXE] found in %windir% to display memory resources.

Other things u can try:

See this excellent guide maintained by a buddy of mine [MS MVP]:

http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.php

More info here:

http://www.mdgx.com/newtip1.htm#THRASH

More stuff:

http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_Demon...mization_01.htm

I'm beginning to wonder if I caught some kind of virus or nasty spyware.

I'm going to do some cleaning for a while.

This problem is definitely pronouced and noticeable as of last night.

When I installed the latest 98SE2ME it made no difference whatsoever.

I started with a pristine system last weekend and haven't installed much other than a few things I routinely use (WinMX, PeerGuardian, Siren Jukebox, Tugzip)

but what I did install was running perfectly for several days with no problem.

The problem started yesterday when my system started crashing and getting out of memory errors.

I've been running somewhat unprotected, but haven't been foolish about going to bad sites or anything.

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I was waiting for you to reply to my inquiries.

My next question would have been if you used recently any anti-virus + anti-spyware tools to make sure you're not "infected", but you already answered that. ;)

Please see this thread about security + protection:

http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=42259...ndpost&p=297635

If u find spyware/virus that cannot be removed from within Windows, and that might try to take over/disable your anti-virus/anti-spyware scanners, u can always boot to native MS-DOS and delete those files from there.

But 1st u need to learn which files to delete.

If u use Norton Anti-Virus, it may tell u in a popup dialog what virus/trojan/zombie/worm u have been infected with. And even if u can't disable it from within Windows, a good tip is to click the URL link [presuming u can still access the internet] that is actually the virus name within Norton popup dialog. That will take u to their dedicated web page, which usually has complete details on how to remove that particular virus.

Most well known viruses are listed here:

http://www.mdgx.com/vir.htm#VX

with dedicated removal guides + tools by Symantec [maker of Norton].

If the "culprit" runs from a typical Registry key or Startup folder, u can use Startup CPL [freeware]:

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

to list/disable/delete any such entries.

If anti-virus tools don't detect anything, try anti-spyware tools like Ad-Aware SE PE + SpyBot Search & Destroy [all freeware]:

http://www.mdgx.com/fw.htm#AW

Hope this helps, and good luck solving the problem.

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The solution seems to have been to uninstall and reinstall a program called PeerGuardian, which is a firewall for P2P software that blocks the 'bad guys'.

Now, the leak is extremely slow. Probably what it was before, but I really didn't pay much attention before PG crashed and started eating up memory every time I tried to use it.

However, I would like to perform some tweaks that will enhance the giving back of unused memory to Windows.

There are always programs that we use that don't make the best use of memory.

I have 512MB on my home machine, so it takes a long time to leak to the point where Windows crashes.

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The solution seems to have been to uninstall and reinstall a program called PeerGuardian, which is a firewall for P2P software that blocks the 'bad guys'.

Now, the leak is extremely slow. Probably what it was before, but I really didn't pay much attention before PG crashed and started eating up memory every time I tried to use it.

However, I would like to perform some tweaks that will enhance the giving back of unused memory to Windows.

There are always programs that we use that don't make the best use of memory.

I have 512MB on my home machine, so it takes a long time to leak to the point where Windows crashes.

I have no experience with PeerGuardian. Have u sent them an email about what happened? Maybe they can fix this in a future release.

A simple [but controversial] memory trick to free [release] a predetermined amount of RAM is detailed here:

http://www.mdgx.com/newtip15.htm#FMM

A bunch of free(ware) tools that do a similar job [some have the capability of freeing memory dynamically] are here:

http://www.mdgx.com/speed.htm

These are the tools I'm talking about:

FreeRAM XP Pro

RAMBooster

RAMPage

RAM Idle Limited Edition

MEM-Trax III

MaxMem

Exercise caution with such tools, your HD/CD/DVD/virtual cache memory may be emptied, and you may experience fault errors.

Another thing u can do to make sure DLLs always free "hooked" memory upon unloading [simple REG hack]:

http://www.mdgx.com/98-4.htm#USEDLLS

Also, maybe it's time to consider other firewalls without memory leak problems [99.99% of these are freeware]:

http://www.mdgx.com/fw.htm

Hope this helps.

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