Insufficient System Resources

Message Edited by Granted on 02-02-2006 11:49 AM

I have an older PC with WIN 98 SE and have run into the same problem, primarily with a new web design application I loaded which doesn't expect to be limited in system resources.  One additional thing to try if you haven't already is to clear out any unnecessary apps that might be running in the background that have been added to your start-up menu.  Don't know what OS you have but in WIN 98 you can use the msconfig utility to find what is being loaded at start up and eating up some of those resources and remove them from being loaded at startup.  Lot's of programs put themselves into that menu when you first install them and you may not even know they are active in the background using resources.

 

Hi,

Various PC system PC components consume resources including Active Desktop viewed as Web Page, themes employing sound effects, animated mouse cursors, desktop icons, complex screen savers, Web browsers windows, multimedia applications and system monitoring utilities, etc. Unfortunately, the amount of memory that is allocated for system resources is predetermined (limited) by the operating system. System resources refers to two portions of Windows memory that are reserved for and used by specific Windows components ... USER.EXE and GDI.EXE, each fixed in size (64kb) due to the Windows 9x architecture which was specifically designed to ensure backward compatibility with 16-bit programs originally written for DOS and Windows 3.1.

User resources refer to the input manager user32.dll which manages input from the mouse, keyboard, and other devices and output to the user interface ... windows, icons, menus, etc., as well as interaction with the sound driver, timer, communications ports, file handlers, etc.

GDI (Graphics Device Interface) manages the visible components of Windows and stores fonts, brushes, bitmaps, and other graphical stuff, as well as provides support for graphic output devices such as printers.

To learn more about system resources, go here...

www.infinisource.com/techfiles/win-resources.html
www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/resources1.html
www.apptools.com/rants/resources.php
www.aumha.org/a/resource.htm

Here's a brief guide for removing system resource consuming applications:

From the Start menu, click "Run", enter "sysedit", click "OK" and edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files and either delete unneeded entries (application, device drivers, etc.) or comment them out by inserting "REM" and a space preceding the entry to be "remarked" out. From within Windows Explorer, delete any unneeded shortcuts in your startup folder (C:\WINDOWS\START MENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP). From the Start menu, click "Run", enter "sysedit", click "OK" and edit the WIN.INI file (C:\WINDOWS\WIN.INI) and delete any unneeded applications following the "=" for the "load=" and/or "run=" entries. From the Start menu, click "Run", enter "msconfig" and click "OK". Click the "Startup" tab and uncheck the entries that you want to disable. To permanently remove msconfig startup entries that reside in the registry, from the Start menu, click "Run", enter "regedit" and click "OK". You will find the startup entries in one of the following registry keys:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunEx
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

Note: Any of the above keys that are followed by a "-" (minus sign) represent startup entries that are disabled (unchecked in msconfig).

I realize that some people are not comfortable with editing the registry. If you happen to be one of them, then I think you will find the freeware applications Startup Control Panel and Startup Manager more to your liking. They can be downloaded from here:

mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
f2.org/archive/software/startupmgr.html

For assistance in determining which startup applications to disable or delete, you'll find explanations for most of them here...

www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm
www.3feetunder.com/krick/startup/list.html
www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
www.pcreview.co.uk/startup
www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

Jim McNamara

I run Windows XP Pro SPII on a Dell  Desktop XPS 600. 2 GB RAM. 320 GB Hard Drive

When I go to Hibernation, I get "Insufficient System Resources exists to complete the API".

The system refuses to go to Hibernation and I  have to shut it off.

What is going wrong? "Insufficient Resources"  is NOT supposed to be a problem in Windows XP.

Thank you for your help,

 

Daniel Bessis

I have run into a similar problem. I have an older Dell(I don't know how old) and I ran Windows XP on it. One day I had to turn off the computer and when I went to turn it back on, it wouldn't start up. I would get the Dell logo screen but then when it got to the start up Windows XP screen (the one where it says Windows is starting up and that stuff like that, the blue screen) Then an error message comes up and says 'insufficient system resources exist to complete the API' and then it won't start, and if I hit OK on the error message, the computer shuts off and turns back on again and that keeps going on in a continuous loop. PLease help!