Explorer.exe Memory Usage

[Guest]

Hi,

I have a reasonably strong knowledge about XP and computers, but cannot seem
to find the root of my issue with Explorer.exe in regards to its memory
usage. Let me start by saying that I have no spyware or viruses to my
knowledge as I use Spyware Doctor and Kaspersky Internet Security regularly,
and have cleaned out my registry recently with ccleaner and Registry
Mechanic. I run only those services that certain websites say are required or
recommended, despite the fact that my computer has 1 Gig of memory and an AMD
X2 processor. It has been awhile since I did a clean install, but I'd rather
not do so since it is quite time consuming and this issue isn't exactly
intolerable.

Basically, explorer.exe starts out at XP startup using around 20MB of RAM,
and after each Windows explorer window I load up, that number increases. The
issue is that when I then close an Explorer window, the number does not
return back to the 20 MB, and certain folders seem to increase the RAM usage
more than others. I have also tried running Explorer windows in separate
processes, and it is only certain times where that actually happens. The
other times those processes get built into the main explorer.exe process
despite the fact that the option is checked in the File Options.

Before running ccleaner, Explorer would seem to take up around 50MB of RAM
when idle (no Explorer Windows open or CPU usage), and afterwards it is
usually been 30 and 35MB of RAM which I know isn't absurd, but seems like
something is askew. I have worked on other computers and generally they seem
to use around 18-25 MB of RAM for explorer.

I have run Process Explorer to see if anything is strange and I didn't catch
anything. I have my paging file set to 1.5x my RAM, no strange Explorer
add-ons, but do use the Media Center theme for XP. I know this may not
qualify as a critical question, but this has been bothering me for a long
time, and I wonder if there is anything I can do to keep Explorer from
performing this memory leak each time I open up a new window?

Thank you very much.

 

[Jim]

Hi,

I have a reasonably strong knowledge about XP and computers, but cannot
seem
to find the root of my issue with Explorer.exe in regards to its memory
usage. Let me start by saying that I have no spyware or viruses to my
knowledge as I use Spyware Doctor and Kaspersky Internet Security
regularly,
and have cleaned out my registry recently with ccleaner and Registry
Mechanic. I run only those services that certain websites say are required
or
recommended, despite the fact that my computer has 1 Gig of memory and an
AMD
X2 processor. It has been awhile since I did a clean install, but I'd
rather
not do so since it is quite time consuming and this issue isn't exactly
intolerable.

Basically, explorer.exe starts out at XP startup using around 20MB of RAM,
and after each Windows explorer window I load up, that number increases.
The
issue is that when I then close an Explorer window, the number does not
return back to the 20 MB, and certain folders seem to increase the RAM
usage
more than others. I have also tried running Explorer windows in separate
processes, and it is only certain times where that actually happens. The
other times those processes get built into the main explorer.exe process
despite the fact that the option is checked in the File Options.

Before running ccleaner, Explorer would seem to take up around 50MB of RAM
when idle (no Explorer Windows open or CPU usage), and afterwards it is
usually been 30 and 35MB of RAM which I know isn't absurd, but seems like
something is askew. I have worked on other computers and generally they
seem
to use around 18-25 MB of RAM for explorer.

I have run Process Explorer to see if anything is strange and I didn't
catch
anything. I have my paging file set to 1.5x my RAM, no strange Explorer
add-ons, but do use the Media Center theme for XP. I know this may not
qualify as a critical question, but this has been bothering me for a long
time, and I wonder if there is anything I can do to keep Explorer from
performing this memory leak each time I open up a new window?

Thank you very much.

It is entirely possible that you are needlessly worrying about this
situation. Most operating systems only release memory when the program
exits. They operate that way because requesting and releasing are time
consuming tasks. Hence, it is better to release at exit time.

I would expect that you are seeing such a behavior as I have very briefly
described.

Jim

 

[Guest]

Ok, but we are just talking about this one O.S. - XP, and while I know this
has been reported before, other computers seem to release the memory for
specific explorer processes when they close back into the available memory.
It seems that the more explorer windows I open (I have different links to
different folders), the more the memory consumed by explorer increases AFTER
all of those windows are CLOSED. Explorer at boot seems rather normal
consuming just under 20MB of RAM, but seems to increase as I look at more and
more files.

The other strange thing is that when I click the links to my various folders
with the folders set to open in a separate process, they sometimes don't, and
increase the memory utilization in the main explorer process. Since my last
post, I tried three different things: defragged when the explorer process was
terminated, created another XP user to see what would happen, and booted into
Safe Mode, and in all three cases I experienced pretty much the same thing as
I do now. Maybe this is all normal and I shouldn't care so much, but since I
don't see this happening much on other computers, I begin to wonder...

Thank you.

 

[GO]

Ok, but we are just talking about this one O.S. - XP, and while I
know this has been reported before, other computers seem to release
the memory for specific explorer processes when they close back into
the available memory. It seems that the more explorer windows I open
(I have different links to different folders), the more the memory
consumed by explorer increases AFTER all of those windows are CLOSED.
Explorer at boot seems rather normal consuming just under 20MB of
RAM, but seems to increase as I look at more and more files.

The other strange thing is that when I click the links to my various
folders with the folders set to open in a separate process, they
sometimes don't, and increase the memory utilization in the main
explorer process. Since my last post, I tried three different things:
defragged when the explorer process was terminated, created another
XP user to see what would happen, and booted into Safe Mode, and in
all three cases I experienced pretty much the same thing as I do now.
Maybe this is all normal and I shouldn't care so much, but since I
don't see this happening much on other computers, I begin to
wonder...

Thank you.

I am no authority on the matter but I would be willing to bet what you see
is quite normal, especially if you aren't experiencing any performance
problems with the computer. If the memory usage was double what you were
seeing then I may suspect a problem. The most likely reason that you see
different results on different computers is just that, they are different
computers. They will most likely have different amounts of memory,
different size page files, and most importantly different contents on the
hard drives. And as Jim mentioned, the OS will sometimes hang on to the
memory even after you are done with it and will free it when it is needed by
another application.

 

[Guest]

My problem is almost the same. Explorer 7 stops responding after a while due
to the memory is overloaded, even if I only have one page active at the end.
So the processor finally stops working due to Explorer and the whole thing
crashes. Notice, it doesn't matter if I shut down Explorer.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

The subject is Windows Explorer, explorer.exe, not Internet Explorer,
iexplore.exe, You have a different problem, so start your own thread.

 

[Guest]

Isn't Internet Explorer a part of Windows Explorer?

 

[Guest]

I thought explorer.exe was internet, but it's iexplore.exe that's intenet
then. My mistake!