To any programmer out there, ..........

why does explorer.exe grow in size in a computer session?

I bought this subject up in http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=102518
but thought a new thread might be better, so as not o hijack that thread.

Process Explorer, http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4566

shows an initial RAM usage of around 2-3 megs, but it grows and grows.
Just checked now, and it is up to 16megs.

I was always under the impression that *.exe files did not grow in size, but obviously I am wrong.

Can someone explain why?
I assume that there is nothing we can do about it.
Just another M$ feature. Bazza

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the exe doesn't change... the amount of memory it uses does.

Er in programming terms: if I assign a number to a variable, the program need to remember it, so it stores it in memory storing the string "Hello World" would use 11 bytes of memory, whilst you are browsing using explorer it is has to remember lots of different things which it does by storing them in ram, if you were to navigate to a folder with lots of files such as system32 you would see it jump up a bit as it remembers all the files that are in that folder

 

Thanks matt. That explains it beautifully.
My education expands, thanks to MG'ers. Bazza

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Is there any way to force explorer.exe to release RAM, when you have closed down almost everything, without rebooting?
I guess the answer is NO but thought I'd ask anyhow. Bazza

 

I'm not sure of a way to explicitly tell explorer to free RAM, but what you can do is restart the process!

Here's an easy way how:

Code:

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe && explorer.exe

copy the above into notepad and save as filename.bat. You now have a script that restarts explorer fresh.

Another thing you can do is NOT RUN EXPLORER at all! (When you're after as much memory as you can - say gaming) You can kill it, and still access task manager via ctrl + shift + esc to launch new applications.

 

Thanks, Mada_Milty. Does running taskkill cause a PC to crash Windows?
I think I remember trying to kill explorer.exe using Process Explorer and Windows crashed. I maybe mistaken. I will try your solutions after I log off. Bazza

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I haven't seen it cause any non-responsiveness, but technically speaking, I think running this command it intentionally crashing Windows (explorer.exe being the most significant part of the Windows GUI). Just remember killing this process will cause you to lose any open explorer windows, or any other part of explorer, like Windows Picture And Fax viewer.

 

I told this to a gaming friend of mine about 2 months ago, and he loves it. According to him, it helped his ping times, and gameplay is smoother.

 

I'd have to agree! Explorer is ALOT of overhead, when you sit and think about it. I always notice when I sort the processes in taskmanager by memory consumption, explorer is almost always near the top of the list... for the bulk of my gaming, I'm usually on a standalone computer without internet connection, so I can't imagine what kind of bandwidth it would consume (Assuming it does have networked functions...)

 

Something I do, on my personal machine, is to expand the info that the normal processes tab displays, such as:

Commit Size
Paged Pool
Non-Paged Pool
I/O Reads
I/O Writes
I/O Read Bytes
I/O Write Bytes
Command line
and
Peak.

 

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe && explorer.exe doesn't do anything on my XP Pro laptop.
In fact it actually incresed RAM usage by around 25%. I tried running it from Start--->Run. Is that the same as running a batch file? Bazza

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Yes, that's the same as running it from command line, or batch file. I'm suprised to hear this, though! I just tried this, and explorer's memory usage went DOWN 12MB for me!

Are you using any kind of third party app that interfaces with the Windows shell? Any kind of desktop enhancement programs? Context menu tweaks?

Explorer is a program like any others. It will start, declare its variables (consuming x amount of resources), and then wait until it is triggered into further action (ie opening windows explorer adds to explorer's memory usage - it has to remember what window you have open, its size and position, where in the file structure it is, etc)...so you should see a decrease unless there is something that is causing explorer to do extra work when it restarts...

 

Mada_milty, I've got so many tweaks to my XP pro that I couldn't possibly pinpoint one tip/tweak/app that might be the cause. I have plenty of RAM, 1.256 gigs, so that is not a problem.

I really just wanted to know why explorer.exe grew in size, and that has been explained.

I was hopeful that there was a way to force explorer.exe to reduce the amount of Ram once nearly all of my processes were closed, but that was also to be able to help others in the same position, but with lots less Ram installed.

I will try taskkill on other PC's that are not so highly modified as my XP Pro.

Thanks M_M and matt_chugg for increasing my knowledge. Bazza

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