G
Guest
Windows XP with rvice pack 2 running on AMD 64 with 512 Mg RAM, has a serious
flaw related to the desktop wallpaper. If a bitmap that is too large is
selected, (and installed) the system begins to thrash as it attempts to
recover enough memory to continue function, and may eventually fail and
become inoperable.
This would be a lower priority problem if the selection of wallpaper were
always directed consciously by the user; one could simply say that if the
user is dumb enough to install a terrifically huge bitmap as the wallpaper,
they deserve what the get. However, many graphics viewing applications,
including the Windows 'Picture and Fax Viewer', offer to save an image as the
desktop wallpaper, and this option frequently appears on a context menu (as
it does in the Windows P&F viewer) in a location where it is easy to
accidently click it. Some applications (such as the Window's P&F Viewer)install whatever image you happen to be viewing as the wallpaper, and some
applications (including the Windows P&F viewer) do not check the size of the
image or calculate whether or not it may be unsuitably large. In short, it
gets installed and if it is a very large image, will shortly thereafter begin
to choke the system (typically on a reboot). This problem can be more or
less unrecoverable -- it may be possible to fix it by rebooting in safe mode,
(when I had this problem in a fatal way I don't remember how I recovered,
sorry). Additionally, it is a very difficult to detect problem -- it does
not occur immedeatelyy after installing the large wallpaper, but as explorer
starts up after a restart.
So anyway, the basic fix would be to have whatever code it is that installs
the current wallpaper to assure that it is not to large, and also to fix
Windows P&F viewer to comfirm installation of wallpaper and perhaps to have
some check of how large it is and indicate to user (who may not be aware of
this directly) that the bitmap is very large and installing as wallpaper may
cause lower performance or memory resource problems.
Good Luck,
sincely,
RC
flaw related to the desktop wallpaper. If a bitmap that is too large is
selected, (and installed) the system begins to thrash as it attempts to
recover enough memory to continue function, and may eventually fail and
become inoperable.
This would be a lower priority problem if the selection of wallpaper were
always directed consciously by the user; one could simply say that if the
user is dumb enough to install a terrifically huge bitmap as the wallpaper,
they deserve what the get. However, many graphics viewing applications,
including the Windows 'Picture and Fax Viewer', offer to save an image as the
desktop wallpaper, and this option frequently appears on a context menu (as
it does in the Windows P&F viewer) in a location where it is easy to
accidently click it. Some applications (such as the Window's P&F Viewer)install whatever image you happen to be viewing as the wallpaper, and some
applications (including the Windows P&F viewer) do not check the size of the
image or calculate whether or not it may be unsuitably large. In short, it
gets installed and if it is a very large image, will shortly thereafter begin
to choke the system (typically on a reboot). This problem can be more or
less unrecoverable -- it may be possible to fix it by rebooting in safe mode,
(when I had this problem in a fatal way I don't remember how I recovered,
sorry). Additionally, it is a very difficult to detect problem -- it does
not occur immedeatelyy after installing the large wallpaper, but as explorer
starts up after a restart.
So anyway, the basic fix would be to have whatever code it is that installs
the current wallpaper to assure that it is not to large, and also to fix
Windows P&F viewer to comfirm installation of wallpaper and perhaps to have
some check of how large it is and indicate to user (who may not be aware of
this directly) that the bitmap is very large and installing as wallpaper may
cause lower performance or memory resource problems.
Good Luck,
sincely,
RC