help! memory cleaner needed...

  • Thread starter Thread starter LunaMoon
  • Start date Start date
L

LunaMoon

Hi all,

I am using Excel 2003 for some project.

I am having 2GB C drive harddisk space.

After a while, the Excel begins to be extremely slow in copy and
paste...

It takes about half an hour to copy and paste just a few cells...

I've consulted people. It seems a memory problem.

But I cannot close my windows and kill the processes, because I am
running long-running (overnight) jobs...

I cannot reboot either.

Is there a way to clean the memory and let Excel 2003 clipboard
function properly without rebooting or killing my 4 long-running
processes?

Thanks!
 
2 gb of harddisk space
is very low and an issue
that will crash your
system.

-----------------

after you clear out
some harddisk space
you probably need
to set the virtual
memory to custom
size as well.

perhaps you should
double check the v.m.
and ensure that it is
not oversized and taking
up your free space.

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
 
A registry cleaner will not help and most likely would cause more problems
if you use a cleaner.
As to killing one or more processes, if you are absolutely certain these
process are the problem you can use Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del),
click on the 'Processes' tab, highlight the offending process and then click
the 'End Process' button.

However a safer way would be to use a tool named 'Process Explorer', it
displays more information including the directory path location and a
'Search Online' function so you can do some investigation before killing a
process.
To find out more about Process and Svchost.exe entries using Process
Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/ProcessExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower
Pane' options.
(This will provide some of the detailed info you may need)
Expand the Process tree until 'Services.exe' has been expanded.
Next move the mouse cursor over the process that you are interested in.
(Example: Svchost.exe process or other process)
You now see a Pop Up showing the path/location on the hard drive for the
process.
Svchost entries may need to be expanded by clicking on the + sign to the
left of Svchost entry.
(You should now see a pop up with a list of services associated with the
Svchost.exe you selected)
Double click on the Svchost.exe process or any other process that you are
interested in.
The 'Properties' Window should now be displayed with numerous tabs
available.
If you highlight a process and right click you can 'Search Online' to find
out more detail on that process.
You can also right click on a process and select 'Kill' to kill that
process.

JS
 
LunaMoon said:
Hi all,

I am using Excel 2003 for some project.

I am having 2GB C drive harddisk space.

After a while, the Excel begins to be extremely slow in copy and
paste...

It takes about half an hour to copy and paste just a few cells...

I've consulted people. It seems a memory problem.

But I cannot close my windows and kill the processes, because I am
running long-running (overnight) jobs...

I cannot reboot either.

Is there a way to clean the memory and let Excel 2003 clipboard
function properly without rebooting or killing my 4 long-running
processes?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Before you look for a cure you should determine the cause of your
problem. Start the exercise by launching the Task Manager. Click
the Performance tab and keep an eye on the various numbers while
your Excel task grinds away. Can you see a correlation between
the PC speed and the Task Manager numbers as they change?
 
Hey folks,

Everything else works fine, except the copy and paste of Excel 2003,
which is extremely slow and often hang for 30 minutes or so.

I am sure it's because of memory problem after doing so many Excel
copy&paste. I use Excel all the day and I open 10 Excel processes.

But I couldn't shut them down. And I cannot reboot, because I have
been waiting long time for the results...

I have tried deleting many files but still I am lack of harddisk
space. There are other people's files on my disk which I cannot
delete, for wierd reason.

I am logged on as an administrator and other colleague also log on
this computer as administrators. And I couldn't delete their no-longer-
used files after they pass the computer to me(they left the group and
I am inheriting the computer). Each of the past users left some files
on the disk which I couldn't delete. That's why I don't have space
now.

Any help on the memory front, on the Excel front, and on the harddisk
file deleting front?

Thanks
 
For those files from other users that you want to delete:
Access is Denied Error Message XP Pro: (should work with Media Center)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810881

Shared folder access:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sdperms.htm

Also read this MS KB article about how to take ownership of files.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

Understanding and Applying NTFS Permission in Windows XP Professional
http://www.winxpsolution.com/ApplyingNTFSXPPro.aspx


For the low disk space issue:
First use Windows 'Disk Cleanup' to create more space on your C: drive.
Description of the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

Next: Empty the Recycle Bin.

You can also free up more disk space by reducing
the number of 'System Restore' points:
Select Start/Control Panel/System, then in the System Properties window
click on the System Restore tab.
Next select the drive letter where Windows is installed (usually C:),
Then click on the Setting button
Now in the Drive Settings window move the Disk space usage slider to the
left to reduce the amount of drive space System Restore points will use.
This will remove some of the older restore points and free up some space.

Disable Hibernation and delete hiberfil.sys file (If you have it enabled):
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...sys-hibernation-file-in-windows-xp-and-vista/
and:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/hibernate.mspx

Next if you still need more space:
Remove the files used to uninstall updates to Windows
These folders and associated files in these folders are safe to remove,
however once deleted you will no longer be able to un-install a patch or
update that was associated with the deleted folder/files.
I would keep the most recent set (last two months just in case) of folders
and delete the older updates.
As a safety net I burned these folders to a CD before deleting them.
These files are located in the Windows folder and have folder names
like $NtUninstallKBXXXXXX$.
They are hidden folders so enable viewing of hidden files in Windows
Explorer.
Warning: One folder you should not delete is: $hf_mig$
Also See the following web pages on this issue:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

Finally - You can reduce the size of the Internet Explorer Disk Cache:
How and Why to Clear Your Cache:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/using/howto/customizing/clearcache.mspx
Just follow the instructs but instead of increasing the size (as stated in
the article) decrease it.

If you have more than one partition or drive then:
How to Change the Default Location of Mail and News Folders:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175037

Change the Default Location of the My Documents Folder
(Example: move it to the D drive)
See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310147
Also:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/how_to_move_my_documents.htm

How to move the Spool folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q308666

JS
Hey folks,

Everything else works fine, except the copy and paste of Excel 2003,
which is extremely slow and often hang for 30 minutes or so.

I am sure it's because of memory problem after doing so many Excel
copy&paste. I use Excel all the day and I open 10 Excel processes.

But I couldn't shut them down. And I cannot reboot, because I have
been waiting long time for the results...

I have tried deleting many files but still I am lack of harddisk
space. There are other people's files on my disk which I cannot
delete, for wierd reason.

I am logged on as an administrator and other colleague also log on
this computer as administrators. And I couldn't delete their no-longer-
used files after they pass the computer to me(they left the group and
I am inheriting the computer). Each of the past users left some files
on the disk which I couldn't delete. That's why I don't have space
now.

Any help on the memory front, on the Excel front, and on the harddisk
file deleting front?

Thanks
 
Hey folks,

Everything else works fine, except the copy and paste of Excel 2003,
which is extremely slow and often hang for 30 minutes or so.

I am sure it's because of memory problem after doing so many Excel
copy&paste. I use Excel all the day and I open 10 Excel processes.

But I couldn't shut them down. And I cannot reboot, because I have
been waiting long time for the results...

I have tried deleting many files but still I am lack of harddisk
space. There are other people's files on my disk which I cannot
delete, for wierd reason.

=============<snippage>

I would suggest that at the next shutdown opportunity, you yank the drive
and clone it to a much larger one.

Where I am, half-terabyte drives are around $83 now.

HTH
-pk
 
Hi all,
I am using Excel 2003 for some project.

I am having 2GB C drive harddisk space.
Click to expand...

Does that mean you only have 2 GB of free space? If so, you have run
out of hard drive room and need a larger hard drive. For 2 Gig to be a
reasonable amount of room, it would have to be less than a 20 Gig hard
drive total, and that is not enough to run any programs like Excel that
have to chug away for many hours at a time.
Your description sounds an awful lot like it's hard drive space. If
I'm right, you can not fix it unless you get a larger hard drive
installed.
 
LunaMoon said:
Hey folks,

Everything else works fine, except the copy and paste of Excel 2003,
which is extremely slow and often hang for 30 minutes or so.

I am sure it's because of memory problem after doing so many Excel
copy&paste. I use Excel all the day and I open 10 Excel processes.

But I couldn't shut them down. And I cannot reboot, because I have
been waiting long time for the results...

I have tried deleting many files but still I am lack of harddisk
space. There are other people's files on my disk which I cannot
delete, for wierd reason.

=============<snippage>

I would suggest that at the next shutdown opportunity, you yank the
drive and clone it to a much larger one.

Where I am, half-terabyte drives are around $83 now.

HTH
-pk
Click to expand...

That's the only way out, IMO; there just is no way there will be enough
recoverable space on that drive from his description to make the effort
even worth trying. I suspect it's get more disk drive or no go. Those
half hour pastes would probably turn into less thana minute with enough
room for the contents on the drive and in RAM. He hasn't mentioned, and
no one asked about RAM, disk size, or anything else so most of this has
been guess by the seat of people's pants, never a good solution to
anything. But, even with that info, I'm still betting the answer will
be more hard drive, plus maybe more memory too to get it working
properly.

HTH
 
based on information contained in the multiple cross postings across a
couple of dozen groups. Your computer is sadly neglected, having be
passed from user to user, never having old users files removed etc. etc.
And then you start 10 instances?!?? of Excel and copy paste between them
and then wonder why eventually it fails to copy paste? If I was to
correct this PC, I would make sure I had good backups of the data files
then wipe the drive reinstall the operating system and Office.
 
How much RAM?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

Does the spreadsheet have multiple links to other spreadsheets?


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Hey folks,

Everything else works fine, except the copy and paste of Excel 2003,
which is extremely slow and often hang for 30 minutes or so.
<big snip>

Are you copying from one Excel document to another, or from some other
source to the Excel instances?  How large are the Excel files?
Click to expand...


I am copying & pasting a few cells within the same worksheet in one
Excel file.

Have you run Disk Cleanup to remove unneccessary garbage from the disk?
Consider removing old System Restore points - these eat up a lot of space..
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did Disk Cleanup a few times, but not very effective. My
diskspace is still small.
How much memory (RAM) does your PC have?
2GB


What other major applications are running when you're doing this?
Click to expand...

Just Excel and email applications, and web explorer.
 
Try screen shots of the performance tab showing those with the highest
memory usage at the top and another with highest CPU usage at the top.
How much RAM memory does the computer have?


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Hi all,

I am using Excel 2003 for some project.

I am having 2GB C drive harddisk space.

After a while, the Excel begins to be extremely slow in copy and
paste...

It takes about half an hour to copy and paste just a few cells...

I've consulted people. It seems a memory problem.

But I cannot close my windows and kill the processes, because I am
running long-running (overnight) jobs...

I cannot reboot either.

Is there a way to clean the memory and let Excel 2003 clipboard
function properly without rebooting or killing my 4 long-running
processes?
Click to expand...


You are apparently mixing up two very different things here. "Memory"
is RAM, the thing you probably have 256KB or 512KB of. You seem to be
talking about hard drive space (sometimes called "storage" or "disk
storage"), which is another thing entirely.

If you are down to 2GB of free hard drive space, that's very likely
responsible for your problem. Yes, there are ways to save some of that
hard drive space, and get more free, but anything you do will likely
only be a stopgap measure. Sooner or later (and much more likely
sooner than later) you will need to buy a larger disk drive.
Fortunately, drive prices are very low right now.
 
No use.

I have reduced system restore capacity. And I have deleted a bunch of
dllcache and temp files.

I have done the Disk Cleaning.

And instead of my customized pagefile size, I have let the system to
manage the pagefile size.

The Excels still have trouble when I copy and paste small cells.

Moreover, I've found more problems. Typing an URL link will also make
it hang...

What's wrong with Excel?
 
You've asked in every newsgroup but the excel group.

: No use.
:
: I have reduced system restore capacity. And I have deleted a bunch of
: dllcache and temp files.
:
: I have done the Disk Cleaning.
:
: And instead of my customized pagefile size, I have let the system to
: manage the pagefile size.
:
: The Excels still have trouble when I copy and paste small cells.
:
: Moreover, I've found more problems. Typing an URL link will also make
: it hang...
:
: What's wrong with Excel?
:
 
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