Windows Sidebar eats up RAM

[Mike123]

I'm sure everyone knows that Windows Sidebar can potentially destroy the
amount of RAM that is available on your PC, but I'm having sort of an unusual
problem with this. When Windows Sidebar is loaded, the amount of RAM that it
occupies is about 20MB, which is certainly acceptable for me. However, after
the course of 6 or so hours the RAM increases upwards of 120MB, and after 12
hours, nearly 200MB! This just doesn't seem right. I'm assuming Sidebar is
stored some previous information via RAM, but I really can't see this
information being necessary at all. Is there anyway I can put a cap on the
amount of RAM that Sidebar uses? Or even some other method to reduce the RAM
usage?
Mike
p.s. Current Sidebar Gadgets:
Digital Clock 2.0
Now Playing
Weather
iStat Battery
iStat Wireless
iStat Memory
Imp's Drive Info
Gmail Checker

I know it sounds like a lot, but like I said, when it is first loaded, it's
only running at 20MB.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Mike,

Start removing gadgets, one at a time, until the incremental increases stop.
When that happens, you'll likely have spotted the culprit. The sidebar
itself will not use much memory, but a poorly written gadget in it may not
be releasing properly.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

I'm sure everyone knows that Windows Sidebar can potentially destroy the
amount of RAM that is available on your PC, but I'm having sort of an
unusual
problem with this. When Windows Sidebar is loaded, the amount of RAM that
it
occupies is about 20MB, which is certainly acceptable for me. However,
after
the course of 6 or so hours the RAM increases upwards of 120MB, and after
12
hours, nearly 200MB! This just doesn't seem right. I'm assuming Sidebar is
stored some previous information via RAM, but I really can't see this
information being necessary at all. Is there anyway I can put a cap on the
amount of RAM that Sidebar uses? Or even some other method to reduce the
RAM
usage?
Mike
p.s. Current Sidebar Gadgets:
Digital Clock 2.0
Now Playing
Weather
iStat Battery
iStat Wireless
iStat Memory
Imp's Drive Info
Gmail Checker

I know it sounds like a lot, but like I said, when it is first loaded,
it's
only running at 20MB.

Gadgets like clocks, CPU and network use meters will use more resource than
calendars and sticky notes..

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

After reading a bucket full of articles on SuperFetch, I am beginning to
learn not to worry about memory issues. It's been a hard thing to do
since I am use to running some memory hungry programs. My Vista laptop
will start off at about 28% when first turned on and slowly climb up to
the low 40% range on 4 gig of memory (3.560 gigs seen by OS). The slow
increase in usage is just the nature of the beast no matter what is or
is not running, so I have read.

Right. It's not any problem at all. In fact if you never get above 40%
used, you have considerably more memory than you need. You would
probably see no difference in performance with only 2GB.

 

[Mike123]

Thanks a lot for all the info everyone. I did what Rick advised and removed
each gadget one by one to see what was causing the increase, and it was the
Now Playing widget. I'm assuming that it stores information/artwork of
previously played songs someplace, but after reading all the later posts, I'm
not too concerned about it. Even when I'm running at full capacity with
firefox, wmp, aim, word, and sidebar open, I rarely go over 50% RAM usage of
my 2GB, so like I said, I'm not going to worry about it. Thanks again
everyone.
Mike

 

[CJM]

Right. It's not any problem at all. In fact if you never get above 40%
used, you have considerably more memory than you need. You would
probably see no difference in performance with only 2GB.

I've got 6GB - Vista still tries to use it to the max.

I'm sure there is a point for every user whereby Vista runs out of useful
things to cache in memory, but with my usage habits, Vista always has a lot
of useful stuff that it thinks I might need next.

 

[CC]

Agree with Rick - probably this is the only way to spot the offenders. Though
I have never try this, I think task manager or the Sysinternals tools can't
help as all the gadgets are under the sidebar.exe hood.

Anyway, a super fast way to reclaim the memory without troubleshoot, is to
exit and rerun sidebar. Right click the sidebar icon in taskbar and click
exit, then in the Start Menu, do a quick search of 'sidebar' and run from
there. All your notes, stocks and regional settings remain intact.

MS did a 'great' job in developing sidebar, I am running 8 official,
built-in gadgets namely calendar, currency, notes, stocks, weather and a few
clocks. After I recycle sidebar this way, I reclaim 512MB, or 1/4 of my
memory, phew