Strange Memory Consumption in .NET apps

Hi,

Is it just me or has anybody else noticed the strange memory consumption of a .NET application?

I noticed this some time ago, but forgot to look into it fully. If you create a new, empty project in any .NET language and then run it (this is a blank form), inspecting the app in Task Manager shows that the initial Mem Usage for this app is 10,924 K!!! This is enormous! There is nothing on the form!!!

So, then minimize the app. Now look at the mem usage - it drops to 628 K! Quite a massive difference. OK, so the app is idle? There are no great suprises to anybody there........ but then on returning the app to focus, the memory usage not shows 1,448 K and it will remain pretty static for the remainder of it's life in memory.

Now, is this a bug? Is it something that is supposed to happen in .NET? I hope somebody can untangle the web of Microsoft Help and find something on this for me?

Would be extremely grateful,
DJ

Welcome to the garbage collector. With .Net apps, don't worry about the memory footprint you see, it isn't real.

What is happening is the CLR is allocating a bunch of memory for your app (ONLY IF IT IS AVAILABLE). When you minimize it, the CLR then goes and cleans up a little and frees some up because it realizes your app doesn't need it right now.

Just remember, the CLR WILL free unused memory when a demand is placed on memory. You don't have to worry about it. We have been so used to living our lives by memory footprints, but for .Net, you have to think differently and not worry about it so much.

That is not to say you don't have to explicitly free expensive memory resources such as images and connections to databases as soon as possible.