How to start program Minimized as to show less memory usage in Task Manager?

[Semen Matusovski]

Guys --
look

   #Compile Exe
   #Include "win32api.inc"
   
   Function PbMain () As Long
      Local hDlg As Long
      Dialog New 0, "Test", , , 100, 100, %WS_SYSMENU Or %WS_MINIMIZEBOX To hDlg
      Dialog Show State hDlg, %SW_MINIMIZE
      Dialog Show State hDlg, %SW_RESTORE
      Dialog Show Modal hDlg
   End Function

Win200: 280 K. If dialog is invisible - 156 K (w/o %SW_RESTORE)


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E-MAIL: [email protected]

[This message has been edited by Semen Matusovski (edited November 10, 2000).]

[Steve Hutchesson]

Guys,

The way I tested the "Stack Reserve","Stack Commit" parameters some years
ago was to run many instances of a test program to see if effected the
total memory usage in a linear manner, it didn't.

Next test was to run a large number of different programs to see if the
memory usage was linear, it wasn't.

The Portable Executable standard is the same across the range of 32 bit
Microsoft operating systems from win95 up and NT4/Win2k so the same things
apply.

As a side hobby I write small memory footprint editors and the single
factor relevant is the amount of code in the application and the amount of
memory that they allocate on the fly. Effectively the stack parameters do
not matter.

The things that you would normally look at in memory usage terms are code
size, memory allocation and deallocation and make sure that you don't have
any memory leaks with GDI and similar functions. Track transient memory
usage to ensure that you don't have overlapping allocations that are not
needed and deallocate when the memory is no longer needed, not at the end
of the proc.

I understand what both Eric and Semen are after with the NT specific APIs
but I see them as extra code and processor time for no purpose. The binary
generated by the PowerBASIC compilers is very efficient if the code is
written properly and that is simply more efficient than covering up a
trivial reading.

Regards,

[email protected]

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[Wayne Diamond]

Steve, thanks very much for taking the time to write that, I always learn something from what you publish here. As an assembly guru you're looking at the program source and seeing code that basically shouldn't be there, and I hear ya big fella! But hardly any of my customers would care if there was an invisible dialog window that they didnt even know about, especially when it has virtually no impact on the running of the program - I'm only trying to look at this from the perspective of a would-be customer who decides to see how much memory my program is using by using good old Task Manager ... sure it's a coverup, and it seems that we have to create a window just to do that coverup, its crazy! But my customers will probably actually be happier?
But, my program is a UDP Server/invisible daemon kind of thing for LANs. It needs to have an invisible window anyway so that it can receive messages, so in this particular case, im not actually creating an extra window to do the mem-usage-coverup, im just using that same window...
anyway while im here id like to thank everyone for their time in testing this, seems there are new questions to be answered though
Cheers!


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[Wayne Diamond]

I was using these three lines, and they were doing the trick perfectly... until I tried to start Photoshop and/or mirc!
The instant i kill my process, photoshop/mirc will spring back to life

Dialog New 0, "", , , 0, 0, %WS_SYSMENU + %WS_MINIMIZEBOX To hDlg
Dialog Show State hDlg, %SW_MINIMIZE
Dialog Show State hDlg, %SW_HIDE

Comment those three lines out, recompile it, and it runs fine and Photoshop/mirc also load fine... (except Task Manager now shows 1200kb+ memory usage instead of 5-700kb)

--

Using Visual Studio 6's process viewer, my program (without the 3 Dialog lines) showed:
Working Set: 1060kb
Heap Usage: 180kb
With the 3 window lines in...
Working Set: 528kb
Heap Usage: 180kb

Compared to Notepad.exe ... in normal state:
Working Set: 1372kb
Heap Usage: 152kb
Minimised:
Working Set: 92kb
Heap Usage: 152kb

am i feeling slightly envious? well, yes...


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[Lance Edmonds]

Well that suggests a couple of things to try.

1. The apps you mentioned may also use a hidden window, so you may need to actually assign some caption text to the dialog window to distinguish your hidden window from other windows.

2. Your app is not providing a message pump, so although you have created a Window, there is nothing to occuring to actually service the message queue.

Why not try starting this dialog as a separate thread and explicitly starting the dialog as a modal dialog... that way the message queue will be serviced, so when another app tries to send a message like %WM_GETTEXT, the message is processed.

Alternatively, recreate your app to work "inside" the callback for the hidden window... triggered either as a %WM_USER message, or as a separate thread.

This will obviously add a bit to the overall memory consumption, but it may still give you the results you are looking for (the "appearance" of minimal memory consumption).

My $0.02...


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Eric Pearson]

> the "appearance" of minimal memory consumption

You could also phrase that "a truer indication of memory consumption".

-- Eric


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