Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Hi,
For the last few weeks, I get a large white rectangular message box without
text in it except for "Close" (with the C underlined). When I try to open a
program after closing the mystery box, I get the following error message:
Not enough free memory to run this program. Quit 1 or more programs then try
again.
After trying to open anything, system gets very slow and I lose patience and
do a soft reboot, then eveything works fine until the box appears again after
several hours. Sometimes have to do a hard reboot to get the computer to turn
off. Box appears even if I just reboot and don't open anything. Takes several
hours for the box to appear, whether I've opened anything or not.

Have HP 6736, 64 MB RAM upgraded to 256 MB a few years ago, Lynksys 10.100
LAN card added a few years ago, WIN ME (yeah, I know better now!), cable
connection, MCAfee Virus Scan and Personal Firewall (from their site), Google
toolbar with popup blocker, Earthlink as ISP, Earthlink webmail with spam
blocker, Outlook Express, CWS, AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy HJT. All
services up to date including HP updates.

Turned off System Restore, then in Safe Mode did disc cleanup, scan disc,
defrag, CWS, AdAware, Spybot, McAfee virus scan, turned on System Restore,
restarted -did this several times, no big stuff found by those programs.
Also did online virus scan-negative.
Any help would be appreciated.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

> Turned off System Restore,

Which should be the last rather than the first action in any clean up as
disabling system restore removes any good checkpoints you may have and
leaves you without a lifebelt in the event of problems. System Restore
should only be disabled and the archive cleared once the system is clean
and working correctly.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mike.maltby@gmail.com


heidkat <heidkat@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> For the last few weeks, I get a large white rectangular message box
> without text in it except for "Close" (with the C underlined). When I
> try to open a program after closing the mystery box, I get the
> following error message: Not enough free memory to run this program.
> Quit 1 or more programs then try again.
> After trying to open anything, system gets very slow and I lose
> patience and do a soft reboot, then eveything works fine until the
> box appears again after several hours. Sometimes have to do a hard
> reboot to get the computer to turn off. Box appears even if I just
> reboot and don't open anything. Takes several hours for the box to
> appear, whether I've opened anything or not.
>
> Have HP 6736, 64 MB RAM upgraded to 256 MB a few years ago, Lynksys
> 10.100 LAN card added a few years ago, WIN ME (yeah, I know better
> now!), cable connection, MCAfee Virus Scan and Personal Firewall
> (from their site), Google toolbar with popup blocker, Earthlink as
> ISP, Earthlink webmail with spam blocker, Outlook Express, CWS,
> AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy HJT. All services up to date
> including HP updates.
>
> Turned off System Restore, then in Safe Mode did disc cleanup, scan
> disc, defrag, CWS, AdAware, Spybot, McAfee virus scan, turned on
> System Restore, restarted -did this several times, no big stuff found
> by those programs. Also did online virus scan-negative.
> Any help would be appreciated.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

On Sun, 5 Jun 2005 15:22:01 -0700, heidkat wrote:

> For the last few weeks, I get a large white rectangular message box without
> text in it except for "Close" (with the C underlined). When I try to open a
> program after closing the mystery box, I get the following error message:
> Not enough free memory to run this program. Quit 1 or more programs then try
> again.

I see that when I run the System Resources down to under 10% on my Windows
ME computer. You need to check on how many processes you are trying to run
at once. Running too many, especially those which are graphics intensive,
will drop resources severely.

System Resources is an issue for Windows 98 and Windows ME. There is no way
to increase the available resources. There are two pools which are each
just 64 Kbytes; and when they are gone, all you can do is try to close
programs. If you are under 10%, about 80% of the time Windows falls over.
Between 10% and 15% you can usually, about 60% of the time, recover by
saving any work in progress, then rebooting the system. If you can catch it
when you are at 16% to 20%, you can usually just close programs until the
percentage goes over 40%.

If you can't recover higher than 40%, you will just be limping along until
you reboot, though, so you probably should just figure on doing that
anyway.

FWIW, this is one area where, in my experience, Windows Me seems to be
better than Windows 98. I usually see Win98 fall over when System Resources
drops below 20%. Windows ME, for some odd reason, keeps staggering along
until going under10%.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

I agree that you are probably running your system resources too low. I have the
"resource meter" running all the time. (startup folder) It warns me when the
resources dip to a dangerous level. (Programs / Accessories / System Tools /
Resource Meter) On my WinMe machine it uses 3% system resources so contributes
to the problem but I find it worth it.
A lot of programs are poorly written and have "memory leaks". These are the main
culprit for low resources. Once you start running the meter you'll be able to
see which programs have this problem. The available resources will drop when you
load any program. When you quit the program the resources are supposed to be
freed but often are only partially freed. So the number gets lower and lower
until you are forced to reboot.
I am currently dealing with this issue running Linksys WLAN manager. At times it
is using 19% system resources. That is by far the biggest resource hog I've ever
seen. Fortunately I've discovered that once I connect to my wireless network I
can quit the program (Cntr-Alt-Del end task) and remain connected.

N. Miller wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Jun 2005 15:22:01 -0700, heidkat wrote:
>
>> For the last few weeks, I get a large white rectangular message box without
>> text in it except for "Close" (with the C underlined). When I try to open a
>> program after closing the mystery box, I get the following error message:
>> Not enough free memory to run this program. Quit 1 or more programs then try
>> again.
>
> I see that when I run the System Resources down to under 10% on my Windows
> ME computer. You need to check on how many processes you are trying to run
> at once. Running too many, especially those which are graphics intensive,
> will drop resources severely.
>
> System Resources is an issue for Windows 98 and Windows ME. There is no way
> to increase the available resources. There are two pools which are each
> just 64 Kbytes; and when they are gone, all you can do is try to close
> programs. If you are under 10%, about 80% of the time Windows falls over.
> Between 10% and 15% you can usually, about 60% of the time, recover by
> saving any work in progress, then rebooting the system. If you can catch it
> when you are at 16% to 20%, you can usually just close programs until the
> percentage goes over 40%.
>
> If you can't recover higher than 40%, you will just be limping along until
> you reboot, though, so you probably should just figure on doing that
> anyway.
>
> FWIW, this is one area where, in my experience, Windows Me seems to be
> better than Windows 98. I usually see Win98 fall over when System Resources
> drops below 20%. Windows ME, for some odd reason, keeps staggering along
> until going under10%.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

I don't believe any M$ proggies have just the "Close" box, most likely
something that you're running.

Culprit IMHO is either the McAfee, Google or Earthlink proggies; I'd
suggest turning everything off except maybe the firewall to see if you
can pinpoint the cause.

Nothing wrong with WinME; IMHO it's rep got shafted because M$ came up
with WinXP shortly after (only thing ticks me off is no RealMode DOS).


Rick


heidkat wrote:
> Hi,
> For the last few weeks, I get a large white rectangular message box without
> text in it except for "Close" (with the C underlined). When I try to open a
> program after closing the mystery box, I get the following error message:
> Not enough free memory to run this program. Quit 1 or more programs then try
> again.
> After trying to open anything, system gets very slow and I lose patience and
> do a soft reboot, then eveything works fine until the box appears again after
> several hours. Sometimes have to do a hard reboot to get the computer to turn
> off. Box appears even if I just reboot and don't open anything. Takes several
> hours for the box to appear, whether I've opened anything or not.
>
> Have HP 6736, 64 MB RAM upgraded to 256 MB a few years ago, Lynksys 10.100
> LAN card added a few years ago, WIN ME (yeah, I know better now!), cable
> connection, MCAfee Virus Scan and Personal Firewall (from their site), Google
> toolbar with popup blocker, Earthlink as ISP, Earthlink webmail with spam
> blocker, Outlook Express, CWS, AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy HJT. All
> services up to date including HP updates.
>
> Turned off System Restore, then in Safe Mode did disc cleanup, scan disc,
> defrag, CWS, AdAware, Spybot, McAfee virus scan, turned on System Restore,
> restarted -did this several times, no big stuff found by those programs.
> Also did online virus scan-negative.
> Any help would be appreciated.
>