[bigmo24]

I do a lot of multitasking on my computer, and tend to leave many webpages open for later reading. A problem I keep running into is that I keep reaching the window maximum, which seems to be around 40, in WindowsXP. You're probably wondering how I ever end up with that many open, but it happens very often.

Usually when I reach the max, no more windows will open, and sometimes the last open window will have various problems with it. (some menus not showing up, errors, etc)

How can I increase this maximum window amount in Windows XP? Is it even possible? It would be a big relief for me if so.

P.S. I'm aware that other third party browsers support tabbing which would probably at least help my problem, but i'd rather stick with IE if there is any other way to accomplish this.

 

[cjessee]

Ram

How much memory are you currently running on your system? This could affect the way windows acts when it has numerous windows open. You can always view the task manager when you get this error and see if lack of memory is causing the problem.

 

[Resolution]

I must say that opening that many windows is pretty ridiculous. The limit is there for a reason. If you don't want to have an issue with browser or system crashes due to a conflict in resource management, then I suggest you finish what you are doing on the other windows and close them, and yes, using tabs would be more ideal.

 

[bigmo24]

I've got 1GB of DDR RAM. The first time it happened I suspected it might be low memory also, but according to the task manager when I checked it, I still have plenty of memory left, up to 500mb free, and the page file is hardly used too.

My system is pretty scotch free. It hasn't crashed once in over a year, and I really put it to the test at times. :wink:

Although it would be a great convenience if I could get some way to open as many windows as necessary when the need arises, without having to switch to a tabbing browser.

 

[common]

yes i would switch to the FIREFOX browser as-well,then you can open TABS inside your browser windows instead of new windows.

get firefox here :


http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

 

[koala]

Having that many windows open will drain your system resources (not memory). Using Firefox, I sometimes have up to 50 tabs open and I can see my resources dropping gradually. When the resources reading drops to about 20%, with Firefox and a few other programs running, I start to notice the problems you mentioned (missing menus and icons).

Try a resource manager like Cacheman and choose the multitasking option to optimize Windows for the type of work you're doing (there are other settings for gaming, multimedia, old PCs, etc)

Cacheman shareware,no disabled features and no time limit

 

[bigmo24]

I'll give that a try. Thanks.

 

[oshwyn5]

I've got 1GB of DDR RAM. The first time it happened I suspected it might be low memory also, but according to the task manager when I checked it, I still have plenty of memory left, up to 500mb free, and the page file is hardly used too.

My system is pretty scotch free. It hasn't crashed once in over a year, and I really put it to the test at times. :wink:

Although it would be a great convenience if I could get some way to open as many windows as necessary when the need arises, without having to switch to a tabbing browser.

Check in the BIOS for your video aperture. This is additional ram on which your video card can cache textures and images. With that much RAM I would up it to the max of 256MB reserved (note this is not the same as VRAM or memory reserved for onboard video . THis is ram dedicated to the Video card which the card can use inaddition to its own RAM)
I have seen this caused when people have huge number of windows open to view pictures/Wepages and it overwhelms the video card. It even happens when they are using tabbed browsers to view lots of pictures/ webpages.

Normally, it is assumed that 128MB is plenty for a normal user with a good video card , and that a better card with more ram decreases the need for aperture, but if you have a great many images displayed, then it still willl need all that aperture.

 

[sf9rnut]

There is a registry setting that will allow you to open up more windows. For me, the max was 35 windows (variety of programs). Every time I would get to window # 36, things would start to go crazy. Alt+Tab would minimize windows, I couldn't open anything, etc.
Open Regedit & go to:
hkey_local_machine > system > currentconrolset > control > sessionmanager > subsystems
Open up the Windows string --- there is text in there that includes
SharedSection=1024,3072,512
If you change that to
SharedSection=1024,4096,512
then you will be able to open up more windows.

 

[pwiecek]

Thanks.

I was having a problem with 2 apps, poser and photoshop. Both open a handful of windows upon startup. If I have a few other windows open, it wouldn't work at all. Hopefully this will alleviate my Windows Explorer problems as well.

 

[pwiecek]

This worked.

Thank you.