win9x, is that win95 or win98 ?
Win95 has problems with a large number of resources, you should only
create your datamodule and mainform in the DPR, and create and destroy
all other forms manually when they are needed.

good luck...

Guido.Geurts.vcf < 1K Download

There is a limited number of "resources" available in Win9x, this limit is in now way related to
available memory, and is fairly low.
Each TWinControl subclass, TBitmap and other DC take up a resource. You can make unused bitmaps
release their DC (and free a resource) by invoking their "Dormant" method, for components, the only
way is to free/remove teh component.
Try to remove/release as many frames and TWinControl subclass components from your forms. Use TBevel
or TShape for cosmetics, make your own components, use grids/listviews to present data, avoid
TStaticText and ActiveX controls etc.

Be aware that some components can literally gobble up resources, the worst I've seen being the spin
button from RXLib (a minimum of 6 resources each...). Also, unlike what is written is the Delphi
documentation, TFrame does NOT reuse "resources", only the DFM data, and an empty frame accounts for
1 resource (like a TPanel), a frame with a single TEdit can account for 3 resources, etc.

Eric Grange

On a follow up of what Eric said:
    W2K contrary to popular belief DOES have resources, but the number is
very very very high.  Also note that under all windows platforms application
space has a resource limit.  If you are using lots of components on
TNoteBook's, TTabControl, or TPageControl's you can free the handle to the
hidden pages and lower your resource usage.  Then when the application needs
the handle to the page back it will re-allocate the resources.  I'm having
problems finding the code I had to do this, but their are examples all over
the web.

--
Jeremy Darling
Eon Clash
www.eonclash.com
ac_har...@hotmail.com

news:3aa5ac24_1@dnews...

Avoid the mental strain of being sorry by just not doing it.
________
Andreas
Delphi 5.01 Pro, NT4.0 Sp5
Direct replies mailto:p...@augsburg.netsurf.de

Rene:

    We had and solved a similar problem on Win 9x. Here is what we did. We
identified a particular computer that seemed prone to this kind of problem.

    Next, we opened the windows resource window on the
windows/programs/accessories/System Tools menu.

    We then ran our application and simply opened and closed various
windows. We found that certain windows caused large decreases in system
resources. In fact, system resources were not repleneshed in some cases.

    As a result of this experiment, we identified the specific offending
windows. These windows were re-written to be more resource efficient. In
some cases, we also spotted resource leaks.

    In addition, you could also use software designed to spot resource
leaks. Good luck.

Neil Huhta