Hi all Is there any reliable way of ensuring that when I close an app (especially any Micro$oft ones) all the RAM that it had populated is freed and returned to available. Many thnx fz

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,mainly on low memory systems. 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.

The fact that windows does not "appear" to return available memory to available is not a major concern. The majority of the memory that is not being returned, is in the file cache (vcache), where your previously used files and programs will still reside. The key is that when/if windows does need ram in order to run, it will cut back on the size of vcache. This cutting back is extremely fast and does not affect performance. In a nutshell, memory is there to be used. Available memory is wasted memory and windows does not need to have memory available in order to run.

Thanks for that. I have noticed at times on my PC (GA7ZX,AMD1.4GHz,512RAM,ME) that if I've been using IE and OE and then switch to an FPS game like CS or MOHAA the game performance is noticably less than if I run it after a clean reboot. fz

Nice tip jFrog...looked familiar... http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/25958.html (response #10)