CompuServe Thread

Joan, =>1. Should I reinstall my workbench to clean up the memory problems? You shouldn't need to. Memory is eaten up in only three ways on startup of the Amy. a. system hardware – having a printer, extra floppy drives etc uses a little memory to load drivers etc. There is no practical way to prevent this as they are loaded automagically as long as the hardware is plugged into the system. b. system resources – these would be your libraries, resident commands etc. These are loaded, again automagically, so that the system does not need to keep looking for them and saves time by loading them at startup. Again this uses just a small percentage of a systems total memory. c. applications – these are the memory hogs. Applications are any program that one loads into your computer that has nothing really to do with your system (some may argue this as some programs _enhance_ the existing system, but they are really not needed). To see what applications are being started at bootup just take a look into your WBStartup drawer where you have your Workbench system located. If there are icons in there, then these applications are being loaded when your machine boots. There is another way (and just as good, but does not show _all_ the programs that may be loaded into memory). Go into your TOOLS drawer (again where you have your workbench) and within the TOOLS drawer you should see another drawer called 'COMMODITIES'. Within that drawer is a program called 'Exchange'. This program will show you what applications you have currently running. It will allow you to remove any program (including itself) that you no longer want to remain in memory. =>2. Has Magic Workbench and the virus killer caused so much havoc? They shouldn't have. I run MagicWB 2.0 on my machine and there was a next to nothing drop in memory after it was installed (there was a slight drop in harddrive space tho as it loaded a number of needed programs/icons etc which take up space, but not too much). As to a virus program, it is good to keep one running as viruses are nasty beasties that could (some of them) do physical damage to your system. Again, a virus checker running in the background should not take up too much memory. I would say that it would be safe to keep these applications on your system. =>3. Can I safetly delete the 3 things from the RAM icon? Would these three drawers be called Clipboards, ENV and T? If so, you cannot delete them as the system itself (again automagically) has placed them there, and all three are needed for system operations. Normally these icons are hidden (ie there is no icon for them, so the system does not show them). If you want them to disappear, just open you RAM: drawer and holding down the right mouse button, move the pointer to the top of the screen to the word 'WINDOW' on the titlebar that appears. As soon as the pointer is over WINDOW a menu will appear. Still holding down the right mouse button move the pointer down the menu to 'SHOW'. Another menu will appear to the immediate right of the word SHOW. You will have two selections in this menu: Only Icons or All Files. One of these should have a small checkmark beside it (most likely All Files). Still holding down the right mouse button, move the pointer over 'Only Icons' till it is highlighted (ie the background should turn black and the lettering should turn white). Let go of the right mouse button. The three drawers should have disappeared. As there are no icons for them (the drawers are still there, just not shown) the system will not display them when you open the RAM: drawer. Workbench also has a number of ways of telling you how much memory is free on your system. When the machine finishes booting, press the left mouse button with the pointer in the middle of the workbench screen (and not over a drawer as this would just open the drawer; which you do not want to do <g>). At the top of the screen on the titlebar you should see something like: 'Amiga Workbench 1 293 760 graphics mem 6 495 080 other mem' *(please note that these figures are from my system and the numbers will be different on your system)* What these numbers mean is that I have approx. 1.3MB of free chip ram (the first number) and 6.5MB of free fast ram (the last number). This gives you an exact figure on free memory space. Do not worry if the numbers change as you are looking at them. It is just the system either flushing unused resources from memory (and therefore freeing up a little extra memory) or loading needed resources in. If you start an application, these numbers will change as well. The next method is by opening the RAM: drawer. On the titlebar you should see three numbers: Ram Disk 100% full, 0K free, 199K in use – (again my system, the last number on your system will be different). What these numbers mean: 100% full – this number would normally tell you in a percentage figure how full your particular drawer is (ie how much disk space is used). With the RAM: drawer this figure is _always_ 100% full. This does _not_ mean that all of your memory is used. It is a minor little glitch in the operating system. 0K free – again in another drawer this would tell you in kilobytes how much free space you have in this particular drawer. Again with the RAM: drawer this figure is _always_ 0K. See above reason (and curse the software engineers for thier little joke <g>). 199K in use – this is the meat and bones. This number shows in kilobytes how much total memory is being used by the system with loaded hardware drivers, resources and applications. On my system I know I have 2MB of chip ram and 8MB of fast ram available for a total of 10MB before the system loads anything into memory. In kilobytes my numbers would read 200KB chip and 800KB fast for a total of 1000KB. With approx 200KB used (199K in use, right?) this should leave me with 800KB free (or 8MB) to do with what I want. Whew! Sorry to get so long winded, but this should give you a little understanding of what the system is trying to show you and may help you on figuring out what is going on in your system. If you have any other questions please feel free to ask. Trent 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'