[iaavagent]

Came across this somewhere? and thought it to be a good tip. Have not tried it yet, so try at your own risk as it involves changes in the Registry.

Has anyone ever done this before and what was the outcome?

*Have you ever wondered why after spending some time working on your computer, that the more programs you open and close, the less available resources you have? You'd think that closing a program would free up any resources it takes up when running right? Wrong.

Windows has a DLL caching mechanism that keeps certain Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL files) loaded to help shorten the time it takes to open programs you use often. While this is a good idea in itself, it is only really useful when you use the same programs over and over and open and close them frequently.

This tip I've found quite some time ago turns off the DLL Caching "feature" and allows the unloading of all program-related DLL files upon closing the program that loaded them. This can and does in fact free up resources used and can also help gain overall stability of the system, especially if the computer is going to be run for long periods of time without restarting.

I've found two variants of this tip, one of which is labeled for Win9x family of the Windows platform (which includes Windows 95/98/98SE/ME), while the other was aimed at Windows XP. Although the Win9x tweak was tested on a XP system and verified to have the same result. So I'll give both here.

Win9x unload DLLs:

Go to Start - Run - type in "REGEDIT" without quotes and press enter. The Registry Editor opens up. Now use the lefthand explorer pane to find this key:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" In the Righthand pane, right click in an empty space and choose "New... - String Value" and name it: "AlwaysUnloadDll" (without quotes and capital letters are important). Give this new string a value of 1, close the Registry Editor, and reboot Windows.

WinXP Unload DLLs: Go to Start - Run - type in "REGEDIT" without quotes and press enter. The Registry Editor opens up. Now use the lefthand explorer pane to find this key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" Still in the lefthand pane, right click on the Explorer folder and choose "New - KEY". Give it a name of "AlwaysUnloadDLL" (without quotes and capital letters are important). Inside that key change the default string to 1 and close regedit and reboot.

This tweak is perfect for low resource systems. The drawback of using this is a very small slowdown in the initial opening of programs, but this isn't half as bad as it sounds. And the benefit of using this tweak far outweighs the drawback.

[Elvandil]

This is a "tweak" that is included with many tweaking programs, such as X-Setup, Tweaking Toolbox XP, Advanced XP Tweak, Advanced System Optimizer, and CachemanXP, to name a few.

The usefulness of this would seem to be limited to computers with very low memory. "This tweak is perfect for low resource systems." It is unlikely with modern machines that this would make any appreciable difference. The down-side is that there is a core few dll's that are used so frequently that nearly all applications require them. By unloading them each time an application closes, the time required to reload them for the next application causes a noticeable slowdown. Having these already resident makes application response time much quicker. And Windows unloads these anyway if memory is needed and they are no longer required.

But, it never hurts to try something that is easily reversible. People use their machines in many different ways, and what may work well for one person's configuration and usage habits could be less than optimal for someone else.

"And the benefit of using this tweak far outweighs the drawback."
Maybe not.

[iaavagent]

Thanks Elvandil.
I've noticed many threads on TSG complaining about low resources and some programs etc not releasing all back for use. Restarting will normally do the trick and also cking for resource hogs and seeing if something can be done.

I agree this is probably more of a problem with older systems,esp.w9x.

One thing I saw missing from this tweak was to advise of "backing up the registry or key" in case something went wrong or an error was made, although it is reversable,backing up is added protection!

If it helps some and not others then one will have to try it to weigh the results of use.
I use w95 on one pute and xp on another and w95 or its progs/apps is a culprit in releasing back resources and I only have explorer and systray in startup.

As stated I have not tried it and wanted to get some feed back to decide whether I will or not.
Thanks again.

[Elvandil]

Backing up is always a good idea.

But there is really little risk in trying it. I have tried it on 95, 98, ME, and XP and ended up putting it back as it was since I saw little difference (with ME and XP, anyway. I don't remember about 95 and 98).

But if there is no discernible difference (improvement), I'd suggest restoring it to default anyway so that no problems occur long after the tweak has been forgotten .

[Bob Cerelli]

I also recommend just rebooting. Typically I don't see this problem from just a day's use.