Windows 7 programs refuse to open (100k problem)

Most programs I try to run do not start. Further task manager inspection reveals that they consume 100k-112k of memory and do not increase. It's like it can't initialize or something. This has happened with chrome, firefox teamviewer and word so far I have tested. Mostly, a reboot seems to solve it. sorta. Any ideas?

Additional details:
-seems windows built in programs work fine like ie and paint.
 
Thanks guys but nothing there worked. I reinstalled windows again and it immediately started doing this again after the first reboot.

I can't figure out why, but removing the pagefile or moving the page file to a drive other than my C: (vertex 2) solves the issue.
 
Cool
I am glad it is ok
but I cant figure out why that worked
I know it is an SSD and I dont think that should make a difference
though I have never had a SSD to know for sure
the pagefile kicks in when you run short of ram
I know that you can actually disable pagefile completely
and if you have 4gb or more ram will probably be ok
I tried that and Windows seemed a little quicker
but I noticed that my commit charge was drasitically
lower and when I basically opened every program on
computer to test it out (including about 30-40 IE8 windows)
that I for the first time actually reached my commit charge
which I have never came close to before

that really doesnt apply here
I am just brainstorming trying to figure your problem out
 
Wait!
It seems like Windows basis its allocation of program memory
from the commit charge
as you open programs it looks at the commit charge to see if it has
the address space to open the program
It seems like that since the pagefile wasnt functional and maybe the commit charge was so low that when you opened a program Windows couldnt allocate it any memory due to your commit charge being wrong
even though you have plenty of ram windows didnt know that so
that explains you opening the program and the memory usage not increasing
It basically couldnt "promise" the program the memory it needs to run
 
What OS? I ran into this problem a LOT in XP, when it would occasionally take a good 2-3 minues to get around to starting a program...

Wouldn't go the no-pagefile route though; too many long-term problems to deal with [especially if you use sleep or hibernate instead of shutting down...].
 

As per the title of this thread windows 7.



 

Interesting theory. I am curious as to if the problem will reoccur if I move the pagefile back to my SSD. I'll try that some time.
 
Just a couple of question, Did you set your min/max size to the same value? How much free space do you have on the SSD? You did disable hybernation and delete its .sys file?

On the swap file - about a year ago there were a number of threads dealing with "put it on SSD, or put it on a HDD?" No clear winner.
..Higher performance, but this is dependent on number of swaps in and out of HDD. With enough Ram this should be rather low. As to deleting, I have 16 gigs ram and still keep a small swapfile with min/max set to same value. Higher writes - but should not really make a big dent in life of SSD. Myself I opted to move it to the HDD. Recently I re-installed my 80 gig intel G2 as a storage/scratch drive. I moved my swap file to it - have not noticed any performance diff.
 
Enzo, I'm having the same problem. I built a new machine, and was working fine until about a week ago and then programs wouldn't start. Task manager showed 100k. I'm at loss as to what to do, i re-set the ram in its socket, wiped and reset the pagefile, but to no avail. I'm running a test of my ram right now. We'll see what happens.
-David
btw the machine also doesnt have hibernation
 
as you open programs it looks at the commit charge to see if it has
the address space to open the program

That would be true, except that every program gets its own unique 2GB Virtual Address space when a process is created. So its NOT an Address Space problem. Well...maybe if the pagefile is too small...[try setting a VERY large pagefile, just for kicks. Very little reason to ever turn it from System Managed though...]

I've seen this happen in XP, and never really found out why. First I've heard of it occuring in 7 though. Could be something as simple as process priorities getting messed up. [Windows is priority based; the thread with teh highest priority ALWAYS runs. If the OS kernal is doing something in the background, it could preempt everything, evne program start up, and wouldn't show in Task Manager to boot. Problem is, I have no idea what could cause that behavior in the first place if thats indeed the case...]
 
Pagefile can't be the problem. I have 4 gb of ram and my system doesn't even touch the pagefile.

I tested my ram, one stick at a time, then together, using memtest. Then i put them back and made sure they were sitting firmly. Everything works now. I'm rebooting multiple times to see if the problem reoccurs.
 
Sorry i forgot to mention that i was having the same issue, and that i dont have an ssd. i have a 1 tb hd. this cannot be a trim problem.

My pc is still working, after testing the ram and resitting it (4 hrs ago). im keeping my fingers crossed though...
 



ok bear with me I am still learning :)
I will have to read this 3 times just to start to understand
sorry for the big post
this is cut from Wikipedia

Commit charge


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




In computing, commit charge is a term used in Microsoft Windows operating systems to describe the total amount of pageable virtual address space for which no backing store is assigned other than the pagefile. On systems with a pagefile, it may be thought of as the maximum potential pagefile usage. On systems with no pagefile, it is still counted, but all such virtual address space must remain in physical memory (RAM) at all times.

[edit] Overview

The Windows Task Manager utility, in its Performance tab, shows three counters related to commit charge:
Total is the amount of pagefile-backed virtual address space in use, i.e., the current commit charge. This is composed of main memory (RAM) and disk (pagefiles). The corresponding performance counter is called "Committed Bytes".
Limit is the maximum possible value for Total; it is the sum of the current pagefile size plus the physical memory available for pageable contents (this excludes RAM that is assigned to non-pageable areas). The corresponding performance counter is called "Commit Limit".
Peak is the highest amount that the total commit charge has reached since the operating system was last started.

The program Process Explorer reports the same set of values, labeling the Total as Current, and additionally providing percentages of Peak and Current towards the Limit value.

The commit charge increases when any program is opened and used, and goes down when a program is closed. It will also change when already-running programs allocate or free private virtual memory; for example, with the VirtualAlloc and VirtualFree APIs.

In the Task Manager utility under Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, the graphical displays labeled "PF usage" and "Page File Usage History," despite their labels, reflect not the pagefile contents but the total (or current) commit charge. The height of the graph area corresponds to the commit limit. These do not show how much has actually been written to the pagefile, but only the maximum potential pagefile usage: The amount of pagefile that would be used if all current contents of RAM had to be removed. In Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0, these same displays are labeled "Mem usage" but again actually show the commit charge and commit limit. Similar displays in the Task Manager of Windows Vista and later have been changed to reflect usage of physical memory.

In Task Manager's "Processes" display, each process's contribution to the "total commit charge" is shown in the "VM size" column in Windows XP and Server 2003. The same value is labeled "Commit size" in Windows Vista and later. The total commit charge will always be larger than the sum of these values, as the total includes system-wide allocations such as the paged pool.

In the same display, the "Mem Usage" column in Windows XP and Server 2003, or the "Working Set (Memory)" column in Windows Vista and later, shows each process's current working set. This is a count of physical memory (RAM) rather than virtual address space. It represents the subset of the process's virtual address space that is valid, meaning that it can be referenced without incurring a page fault.

The commit charge for each process does not include other major contributions to the process's virtual address space, such as mapped files. For this reason, the process's working set (the portion of its address space that can be referenced without incurring a page fault) may be larger than its contribution to total commit charge, and the total commit charge is not inclusive of the total memory (physical or virtual) actually in use.

The commit limit may be increased by either creating additional pagefiles or, if pagefile expansion is enabled, by expanding an existing one. The operating system will expand the pagefile automatically, if possible, when the total commit charge approaches the limit. In such an event a popup window will be displayed stating that "The system is running low on virtual memory."

If the system ever runs completely out of commit charge (that is, if the total reaches the limit), a popup window will be displayed stating that "The system is out of virtual memory," and it may become extremely sluggish or even nonresponsive. Closing programs (if the user is still able to do so at this point) decreases the total commit charge and may thereby free up the system


for some Toms members this may be Memory Addressing 101 LOL

so if they can help explain it in ENGLISH :)
that would be great

from what I can understand by not having a pagefile than you are limited to the the amount of ram you have
for your commit limit

if your commit limit is exceeded then you will have an out of virtual memory error
I have to research what a page fault is and what problems that causes

Of course the point is moot now since it sounds like a RAM error was possibly causing problem

though Enzo said this
I can't figure out why, but removing the pagefile or moving the page file to a drive other than my C: (vertex 2) solves the issue

the key to the problem lies in that statement
 
Turns out the issue is still outstanding. I installed windows updates and it started again. After removing them all, it disappeared. But now it has returned. I forced shut down the computer and started up again, and it disappeared again.

I also believe network access to shared folders is not possible while the issue is there. From another computer to this one, that is.
 
As I have previously said, this occurs with every single non-windows program that does not start up automatically. Naught to do with browsers.
Actually though, I cannot recall if I could open word or not. I will test it out next time this problem occurs again. It might be that anything that hasn't started on bootup won't open.

Update:
The network access I mentioned above isn't true. Network access works fine as it should.
Ok so after rebooting and having it disappear, I reinstalled the updates and everything is fine... for now.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Keep em coming.


I had the same problem as you. Firefox didn't work, my invioce program didn't work, but IE did. Also the problem randomly occurred. Sometimes a reboot fixed it, sometimes not. Last week I took out both sticks of ram. I put one back in, booted to memtest and ran it for an hour. Then I did it with the second stick. Then with both in there. The computer has been running fine for the past 5 days now.
 

That very well describes my situation as of current. I rarely reboot so it took me a while to figure that part out.

I intend to upgrade my motherboard and ram this summer as part of my upgrading. What is your current system setup? Perhaps we have something in common in that regard.
 
Out of curiosity, I assume if you look in Task Manager, "System Idle Process" is probably hanging at 99% CPU usage while you are waiting for the programs to go, right? That would indicate you DON'T have a RAM problem, and that instead, the OS is busy doing something else within the system kernal that is pre-empting the process startup. If thats the case, the only windows API's with that high priority are:
1: IO interrupts
2: Sound [Sound has REALLY high priority in windows]
3: User Input [mouse, keyboard, etc]

Update drivers, and if you have any unique USB devices, try unplugging some. A shoddy driver could potentially cause this type of behavior...
 
??? I have a standard mouse and keyboard. Regarding the sound, I use the driver that windows 7 installed. If the problem is in the kernel, how come windows programs work fine? (i was browsing with ie when firefox didn't work.) Furthermore, how come whenever I play with the ram it works after?


My setup is:
Asus M4A88T -M AM3 Micro ATX
AMD Phenom II x4 840 3.2ghz
G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600mhz
Seagate Barracuda 1TB


 
Microsoft tech ed has a great video lesson about memory.
http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica/WCL402
It's pretty simple to understand
(download sysinternal's process manager before watching to follow what he's saying)