[Preston Tyson]

Force Windows to Unload DLLs from Memory (All Versions)

Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory on low memory systems, and may cause problems or delays for programmers developing with Windows DLL files.

Open your registry and find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].

Create a new sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' and set the default value to equal '1' to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.



(Default) REG_SZ "1"

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion...

Settings
Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Explorer\AlwaysUnloadDLL]
Value Name: Default
Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)
Value Data: (1 = enable)