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General discussion

Why so much memory usage at start up?

by provoko Dec 5, 2003 12:37AM PST

When I start up my windows; 118 megs are being used up by programs. I never understood why so much memory is being used up on my computer while so little is being used at my friends computers.

Here is a picture of my processes:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1j832/mystartup.gif

The biggest problems are five svchost.exe with one of them running at 17 mb, and explorer running at 23 mb.

If anyone gets confused, sagent/printer, avgserv/antivirus, zlclient/firewall, vsmon/antivirus, em_exec/mouse and cthelper is for soundblaster dvd or something; the rest I have no idea.

My questions are: How do I reduce the amount of memory windows takes up like with svchost and explorer? And what's the deal with the other processes? Thank you.

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Re:Why so much memory usage at start up?
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Dec 5, 2003 12:46AM PST

It's simple. It's cheaper to let programmers use more memory than tell them to use as little as possible. Since Windows is not an OPEN SOURCE OS, you have little to no control over the qualities you are interested in.

You can research each process and program with http://www.google.com and the google groups to understand what each program does.

Bob

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Thanks, I did more tweaking and got it down to 110 mb, is that the best?
by provoko Dec 5, 2003 1:25AM PST

Yeah google, I actually used that, but I shouldn't have even asked, haha, I forgot about blackviper's site. I went back to his site and that basically answered all my questions.

BUT, I did a little more tweaking and got it down to 110 megs. But is that the best? True that I'm running with firewall/virus/popup and other programs, but if I take them all away including taskmanger I get about 85 megs. Does windows really have to take up 85 megs?

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Does windows really have to take up 85 megs?
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Dec 5, 2003 1:50AM PST

No. But no one will pay to develop "small".

The issues are simple. Lower cost software will not be the most memory efficient. Unless you are looking at Linux?

http://www.litepc.com/98micro.html has Windows 98 to 50 Megabytes of hard disk space.

http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html is the version for XP and Windows 2000.

Here's the BIG QUESTION. Will you PAY for such?

Bob

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This from the MSKB might help you help yourself...
by Edward ODaniel Dec 5, 2003 5:29AM PST
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314056

Each Svchost.exe session can contain a grouping of services, so that separate services can run, depending on how and where Svchost.exe is started. This allows for better control and easier debugging.

Svchost.exe groups are identified in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Svchost
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