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To: Road Walker who wrote (138285)6/27/2001 6:57:14 PM
From: Saturn V  Read Replies (1) of 186894
 
Ref < Software Aging .....small programming errors may accumulate and absorb increasing amounts of a computer's resources, eventually leading to server downtime. >

I do see this problem with Windows95/98. For example every application uses memory, and the application makes a request to the operating system for memory. When the application terminates, it is supposed to return all the memory it used back to the operating system, which can then reallocate it to other applications. However most applcations have bugs and not all the memory used is returned back to the operating system.Consequently after a while the operating system runs out of memory. This can also happen with other graphics resources. I am forced to reboot my Windows 98, every few weeks because Microscoft mail and some other applications have "memory and resource leaks".

I thought that Windows NT, kept track of the memory allocated to an application and when the application terminated, all the memory assigned to the application was automatically returned to the system pool.

Another aging process can be memory fragmentation. On a rebooted system large memory block requests are easily fulfilled. However after a while even if all the memory is returned back to the available pool, the available blocks are fragmented, and are not big enough to meet a large block request. Good operating systems are supposed to merge a deallocated block with any contiguous free block. Some operating systems dont bother, and you are left with a large number of small blocks as the software ages.

I do not know all the limitations of Windows NT.
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