Explorer.exe - uses too much memory

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by pcontour, Sep 21, 2005.

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  1. pcontour

    pcontour Registered Member

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    Aug 18, 2004
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    On my computer I have 4 accounts.

    2 accounts are used occassionally, for the kids to play games. They start and load quickly, and the kids are ready to go in no time.

    1 account I used to use for all of my work. Many programs have been installed and uninstallled from that account. It was gettings so slow, I decided to bite the bullet and create a new account. It was as fast as the kids. Over time it has been slowing down.

    I was in the original account today and I saw that explorere.exe was at 45,000 shortly after startup. After a couple of hours explorer.exe is down to 18,000. Other accounts run with explorer.exe at lower levels

    This slow account had a lot of desktop Icons and folders with many megabytes there. My documents was extensively used What causes explorer.exe to use up more memory as time goes on. After creating the new account, the desktop is almost empty of Icons and my documents is also almost empty. The account remains slow.

    Spyware, defrag, registry (cleaned regularly) and startup processes are not an issue. All accounts start the same software. The deterioration of explorer.exe startup performance seems to be the issue.

    0. What is the underlying process with this thing?
    1. Are there things I can cleanup, that this is using at startup?
    2. If yes what tools should I use to find these and clean them up?
     
  2. ravin

    ravin Registered Member

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    Location:
    South Carolina
    account management is important you can view them in control panel under users make sure the kids accounts are limited (that way they can't install too much on their own) and make sure your account is the administrative account. unused accounts can be deleted. As for explorer it's mem usage depends on all those icons and apps loaded in the system tray (lower right corner) and other various system files required to run windows. sometimes you can look in task manager and look at the number of running processes then count up the icons on desktop and in system tray and see that they should be close to the same number. as for scanning try some online scans and dowload trials of webroots spysweeper and ewido and see if anything turns up that may be causing high usage. hope this was helpful.
     
  3. pcontour

    pcontour Registered Member

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    Thanks for taking time to reply. If you read everything I said, you will read that the desktop and my documents has been cleaned up, to clarify the desktop now has 3 icons. To clarify no extra processes are running in this account vs the others. I have run Ewido etc. My kids don't screw up this machine, or download "stuff" and are not administrators. It's my accounts that are slow on startup.

    Once explorer.exe has been up for a while it reverts to lower memory usage, I would like some insight on how this could happen.

    The issue is just with Explorer.exe, it seems you and I know about all the same things. Perhaps someone is really knowledgeable about Explorer.exe. My theory now is that Explorer.exe is accumulating a huge list of dlls somewhere or somehow. This is where the number of installs and uninstalls that I do are an issue.


    0. What is the underlying process with this thing?
    1. Are there things I can cleanup, that this is using at startup?
    2. If yes what tools should I use to find these and clean them up?
     
  4. LokiLoki

    LokiLoki Guest

    This may not be what you want.

    But I suggest changing shell. Eg. GeoShell or SharpEnvironment......
     
  5. pcontour

    pcontour Registered Member

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    Aug 18, 2004
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    Thanks :D - We may be getting closer, which shell do you use and why?

    :cool:
     
  6. pcontour

    pcontour Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 18, 2004
    Posts:
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    Ok: So SharpEnvironment - looks a little more promising that GeoShell right now.

    However, I'm building tutorials including the startmenu at times, so I think I'm stuck with the old mule. Is there a choice that looks the same, but works better? That's a bit of a rhetorical question. What reason or motivation would their be to produce in a faster version of ugly?

    Back to what I need - any ideas on how to fix explorer.exe.

    The issue is just with Explorer.exe, Perhaps someone is really knowledgeable about Explorer.exe. My theory now is that Explorer.exe is accumulating a huge list of dlls somewhere or somehow. This is where the number of installs and uninstalls that I do may lead to the issue.


    0. What is the underlying process with this thing?
    1. Are there things I can cleanup, that this is using at startup?
    2. If yes what tools should I use to find these and clean them up?
     
  7. LokiLoki

    LokiLoki Guest

    I have tried both and currently Geoshell is better. It uses little resources. BUT for a really personalised Geoshell, you have to edit the registry to change it's look. The documents are there on the web and is very simple.

    As for SharpE, I recommend waiting for cvs 7 which has an auto updater. The current version, you have to bear with the tray bug but it's not a big deal.

    I'm waiting for both updates. If you like simplicity(graphics), get Geoshell. Otherwise, SharpE. Both uninstall easily so you can try.
     
  8. pcontour

    pcontour Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 18, 2004
    Posts:
    29
    Thanks again, your information Loki it could be valuable to someone with more options.

    I'm building tutorials sometimes including the start menu at times, so I'm stuck with explorer.exe.

    The issue is just with Explorer.exe, Perhaps someone is really knowledgeable about Explorer.exe. My theory now is that Explorer.exe is accumulating a huge list of dlls somewhere or somehow. This is where the number of installs and uninstalls that I do may lead to the issue.

    0. What is the underlying process with this thing?
    1. Are there things I can cleanup, that this is using at startup?
    2. If yes what tools should I use to find these and clean them up?
     
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