can't get window handles

from Stardock Forums
I've been using Window Blinds for a while now and even made a few skins. One issue that I have seen many times is that after a while (i leave my computer on 24x7) Windows runs out of window handles (HWND). Common dialogs won't open unless I close other windows, apps refuse to start unless I close other windows. I suspect Window Blinds is the culprit since the symptoms don't occur when I use plain styles. I've been using a plain visual style over the past week, unloading Window Blinds and have not encountered the problem. This was also happening with the stable 5.1 release.

Maybe there's a conflict with UltraMon?


WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 5 (5.5 (build 84 x86))

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

You have 2 monitors.

(Dell 2007FP (Digital)) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
() 2 is attached to UltraMon Display Mirror Driver

Wblind.dll 2006/12/12 16:40:20
Wblind64.dll 2006/10/09 11:51:37
Wbsrv.dll 2006/11/18 14:47:19
Wbconfig.exe 2006/12/20 13:35:02
Wbload.exe 2006/03/13 16:54:14
Wbhelp.dll 2004/09/18 16:37:07
Wbui.dll 2005/12/06 20:29:06

windowblinds
2,983 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
From a post by Brad a long while ago:
Once you do that, go to the Performance tab. Check and see how much RAM is in use. A lot of young techies get obsessed with the amount of memory committed. Don't. Check to see if your CPU meter is pegged too high, check to make sure you're not using a ridiculous amount of memory (I have 1 gig installed so 419MB in use is no biggie). But most importantly: Check the handles in use. This is what slows down your system.

The # of handles in use should never grow much beyond 12,000. When you get to 15,000 handles, weird things can start to happen and you'll feel your system slow down. This is where most people just reboot. They'll throw up their hands and say "Well, time to reboot." But that's unnecessary because the task manager can tell you what program(s) are using up those handles.

Once you have that set up. Look at the column headers. Sort by the ones I've highlighted in yellow first. Is something using up most of your CPU? Then kill it if it's not supposed to. Is something using more than 2000 handles? If so, you should probably kill that too. Same for User Objects and GDI Objects.


What's using your handles?