RAM utility

[Cluttermagnet]

Hmm... I noticed with the -tray extension, it does pop the window up on the screen and after a second or so, pops to the tray...  the silent one pops up and runs a defrag, then exits...  As for why they're not working, I don't know...If you right click on the shortcut, and go to properties, in the shortcut tab, it should say:"C:\Program Files\RAM Def XT\RAMDef.exe" -silentor "C:\Program Files\RAM Def XT\RAMDef.exe" -trayCheck that and also check that the "Start in:" line says "C:\Program Files\RAM Def XT"Make sure you leave all quotes as is. :)What I would do is move the main shortcut, then copy and paste it again, add the silent line to the new one and rename it... do the same for the third.

Thanks for jumping in, GolfPro-Yes, this makes good sense. I was trying to get across the idea of right-clicking up the icons' Properties to get a read on the situation, but you have said it more clearly. Any icon that shows in those boxes in Properties the way you describe has always been a working icon/shortcut in my experience. From Larkspur's graphic of the wizard, the syntax looks correct, but this is a wizard view rather than a Properties view. I would always prefer to start with a known-good icon's Properties and go from there. Yes, the Properties window should have the main .exe in the Start In box and the full 'command line' in the Target box, including the quote marks and the "-silent" or whatever at the end (without quotes).This is so funny because I am seeing and understanding what Larkspur's "Create Shortcut" wizard does, but I have never used this feature of Windows. I prefer to do such things manually. I'm embarrassed to admit I forget how you click your way into that wizard environment. I have done a few tweaks to my Win98SE and hidden a few options in my Start menu; also I have added a couple of items in there. I may be missing something I need to access that wizard. I never saw this as a problem before as I never do it that way anyway. Another great example of how much hidden functionality there is in Windows and how there are almost always multiple ways of doing a given task.My computer guru showed me early on how to take control. He put a strong emphasis on learning Windows file management. He was right, and I'm grateful he taught me that way. I do a lot of stuff manually using Drag & File, which is functionally equivalent to Windows Explorer. I much prefer D&F and find Explorer at times 'clunky', though there are certain specific operations it does better than D&F. Anyway, I prefer to do these little jobs more graphically, visualizing the locations of various folders and files within my 'tree' and understanding their relationship to each other as I create and then move stuff around myself. I will resort to wizards for a number of operations such as setting up networking because that can be more complicated and the wizard usually handles it just fine. For simpler stuff like icon creation or file moving I much prefer to do things manually. That way, I understand better what files are involved, where they are all located, and maybe a little about how they interact. Since everything happens more visually, I can better remember how things are set up and where everything is located. It is harder to go back in later to fix or change something if you don't remember where things are. Of the five senses, sight is the most important, accounting for about 70 percent of all we learn. The more visual reinforcement, the better we memorize things.

[GolfProRM]

Just so you know (for future reference) If you right click on the desktop or in a folder and go New -> Shortcut, that's what brings up the Wizard.

[Cluttermagnet]

Just so you know (for future reference) If you right click on the desktop or in a folder and go New -> Shortcut, that's what brings up the Wizard.

Thanks! I think I will remember it now.

[Larkspur]

Huh...I'm not sure that I've solved the puzzle, but I've finally got the shortcuts working. I had actually put them into their own folder within the larger "overflow" folder I spoke of, and when that didn't work, created them from within that folder. This evening I took the original shortcuts the program created and simply put them into the overflow folder itself, not in their own folder-within-the-folder. Suddenly they started working. Perhaps the Russian nested-doll thing was what was throwing things off?Thanks to all for your friendly imput... Larkspur

[ibe98765]

From: http://arstechnica.com/tweak/win2k/others/...s/memory-2.htmlHeap CompactionThis is the process also known (although improperly) as memory defragmentation, and has been used with Win9x for some time. The process is of questionable benefit to Windows 2000, because it manages its memory in an entirely different way than Win9x does, but the information could be useful nonetheless. What is actually occurring when one 'defragments' the system memory is a dumping of main memory to the page file, forcing the computer to reload all of the active information into memory. In computing terms, this is called Heap Compaction, or Garbage Collection. You can use a small, Visual Basic program to perform this action. Simply open up a new file in notepad, input the line Mystring = Space(16000000), and save the file with the .vbs extension. Assuming you have the Visual Basic runtime libraries installed on your computer (they're installed by default by Win2k), when you execute this file it will flush the system memory. This is particularly useful after running a program with a known memory leak - it can be used to discard the leaked space and allow other programs to use that portion of memory again. If you have a large amount of system memory, you may wish to consider using a higher number within the brackets of the visual basic script - I have tested values up to 80000000 without any problems on my system. Using a higher number should more effectively purge the system memory of leaked space.