Ok, I'll make it simple and sweet. The machine is a ThinkPad, with 512MB of RAM in it (specific hardware isn't relevant at this point). A clean installation of XP SP3 on that machine, and then hitting Windows Update and getting every update available as
of this morning, and then ensuring the drivers are installed and Device Manager is completely 'clean' (no ! errors or notifications) - and it has an older ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 in it, 32MB dedicated - and without any AV/malware/spyware protection installed
at that point will show ~115MB of RAM usage after a clean reboot.
Hit it with Bootvis for an Optimize pass and get the boot time down to 15.26 seconds. Check the RAM usage; about ~119MB. Reboot twice, the RAM usage is now leveled off at about ~120MB, with everything updated, everything current, IE8 installed, all drivers
active and working, with the laptop hardlined into my router (and it doesn't have wireless, by the way).
So that's as clean and efficient as it gets.
Now I install MSE (for XP, obviously), and do a full update and a quick scan, then reboot.
Somebody want to clue me in on why MSE is such a RAM hog - and yes I'm fully aware of the fact that I've got 512MB of RAM in this, that I use MSE on Vista and Windows 7 machines with 1, 2, 4, 8, and even two machines with 16GB of RAM in them, and many others
in between from laptops to desktops to tablets, but...
This is truly excessive RAM and resource usage and I'd like a decent answer if anyone can offer one. It's a bit ridiculous, and I won't even get into the excessive CPU time that most people notice when a scan is taking place.
I made an image of this laptop with True Image just before I installed MSE so I could do some proper baseline testing. I installed my old tried-and-true copy (retail) of NOD32 v2.7 (just AV, of course), and after installation and a full update to today's virus
signatures, after a reboot NOD32's two components (the kernel and the active engine) cause my boot time resources at the Desktop to be ~143MB, barely a dent compared to the massive practically DOUBLING of RAM usage that MSE causes.
And I get this on several different XP machines that I've worked on for clients.
Why the massive hit to RAM and resource usage? I noticed this in the beta stage and fully expected a lot of tuning to take place when the product was finalized but, it sure looks like that hasn't happened and I'm thinking at this point the MSE developers are
taking the wrong stance and going at this from the "Machines are faster these days and have tons of RAM so we could care less."
Bad idea, bad programming, wasted resources.
Don't get me wrong: I do like MSE, and it's shown itself to catch things that other similar products are missing, in many ways, but good lord... there's no legitimate reason to have AV/malware/spyware protection software running at "Normal" priority anymore.
They're designed to work in the background and called upon when necessary; it should be hardcoded to run at Low or Below Normal priority. The resource hit in terms of CPU usage, especially on older machines, is truly unbelievable as I watch them come to a
near-standstill while a scan is taking place.
I know Microsoft has all but given up on XP and people that use it (it's true even if MS reps say otherwise), but damn... considering that AV software from years ago (the NOD32 v2.7 I keep around) uses so much less and is barely noticed when it scans, I just
can't understand why MSE basically kills a machine during a scan, and rapes it for RAM too. I enabled other columns in Task Manager to get a look at peak RAM usage and virtual memory hit and, well... MSE alone shows ~60MB of RAM, ~180MB at peak, and ~220 or
so for virtual memory so on an older low RAM machine like this ThinkPad that is a CONSIDERABLE chunk of available resources. It's got a 4200 rpm drive in it so when it starts paging that kills performance on top of whatever MSE is draining...
Bleh. I'm just ranting I suppose. I will continue to use MSE and recommend it, but for some folks that can't afford the newest and fastest hardware, MSE is crippling the very machines it's trying to protect just to get the job done.
I changed your post to a comment as there really isn't an answer for your question. On XP the minimum requirements are 256 megs of RAM and on Vista/7 it is 1 Gig of RAM. I would not recommend running either OS these days with those minimums.
On XP 512 is not bad, but you'll suffer in performance for ust about any application - including Security.
The RAM usage when performing real-time protection - that is, when it is pretty much idle - of ~100megs or so is not bad for what it does. When running a scan or performing an update, it's going to drag the PC performance to the basement as it will need more
RAM.
I'm not a programmer, so I can't tell you why exactly MSE uses that RAM, but I believe that you'll be hard pressed to find a comparable security program out there using less resources. In my experience, Avast is about the leanest you'll find, but it is much
less effective than MSE. I continue to recommend it for an older machine with limited resources as long as most of the auxiliary protection services are disabled so that it is pretty much just doing real time process/program/file protection.
-steve
~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~
Microsoft SUPPORT >> support.microsoft.com Microsoft SECURITY >> www.microsoft.com/security
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512 on XP is just to small . get at least 1 gig
While anything under 1 Gig is going to cause performance to lag, XP runs adequetely with 512 megs of RAM. It runs poorly with 256 megs, but it runs. If you aren't trying to do much more than browse the web and check emails on an older machine, there's no reason
to spend money on RAM. Some older machines use RAM that is fairly expensive to obtain these days. ;-)
-steve
~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~
You are VERY correct, but we must remember that MS writes this kind of "new" software with newer hardware in mind. So the average PC these days has 4 gig, even if you take 25% of that (1gig) it is still double what you are trying to use.
To be honest, that lappie needs to be retired and given to the kids ... :) If you had a jump of 148meg on your 16gig system ... would you notice it? Probably not! So just keep in perspective here that it is actually to running that bad really.
OH ... and by the way ... MS have not dropped XP ... on the contrary, they just released SP3. I think be the end of this year, they will be within their rights to drop support for XP. We all cried and forced the release of Windows7, not it is here, we will
be pushed in the direction to upgrade. But again, not till the end of 2010, i believe!
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