Closing Programs

[Campbell]

I have recently purchased a Dell and am rather new to PPC's.

I have noticed that when using the PPC for an extended period of time that it would start to slow down. This bug me for a while, but then I realised that it was because the programs that I thought I had closed were actually still open. If I had opened Mail, Contacts, File Explorer, Adobe Acrobat and then closed them all, they were actually still in memory.

Is there a way to actually close them down, without going to Settings > System > Memory? I can shut down programs but only using this method.

It seems silly that programs like Adobe Acrobat which take up around 4mb of memory aren't closed properly when I hit the X in the corner.

Cheers guys. :o)

[baker]

There are several good task managers available for $ like Handy Switcher, SPB Pocket Plus, etc. and some free ones you can try here:
http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/utilities_taskmanagers.shtml

[Stephen Beesley]

I have recently purchased a Dell and am rather new to PPC's.

I have noticed that when using the PPC for an extended period of time that it would start to slow down. This bug me for a while, but then I realised that it was because the programs that I thought I had closed were actually still open. If I had opened Mail, Contacts, File Explorer, Adobe Acrobat and then closed them all, they were actually still in memory.

Is there a way to actually close them down, without going to Settings > System > Memory? I can shut down programs but only using this method.

It seems silly that programs like Adobe Acrobat which take up around 4mb of memory aren't closed properly when I hit the X in the corner.

Cheers guys. :o)

Ahhh - new to the Pocket PC and you have already discovered one of the most controversial features of the OS - the close button does not actually close the program it only mimises it. The OS itself is meant to "manage" the memory in such a way that it will automatically close unused programs as you need more memory.

Most of us seem however to prefer a little extra control over when a program closes or stays open. Therefore there are a raft of third party software that will add this feature. One of the most popular commercial software that can do this along with a lot of other things is Pocket Plus (http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/pocketplus/?en)

If you are looking for a more simple approach you might try something like Wisbar Advance (http://www.lakeridgesoftware.com/) a combined task switcher and enchancement to the task bar.

There are, as I said earlier, a range of pieces of software that add this feature and I am sure that other responders will give you a lot of options.

Edit - see: it took me so long to type this somebody already beat me to it :D

[Campbell]

Wow thanks for the quick response. That freeware site is great, I got a program called vBar that seems to do the trick! I can't believe this kind of functionality was left out of the OS itself.... but never mind. Thanks guys that's great. :D

[Kowalski]

I can't believe this kind of functionality was left out of the OS itself. this is a left over from old days. The proccessor power was very little so designers decided to suspend the applications rather than closing in order to increase startup time.
But if you are a developer and you want your appication to close instead of minimize, you can do this very easily. So this is up to the programmer to change the way program reacts to close command.