Is it true ?

Fidelis

Was watching Technofile ( shut it ) and the PC Doctor said not to click on the 'x' in the top right hand corner of an application, say ieexplorer or any window, because it leaves excess pieces of data floatint about the system.
This true ?

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Nil Desperandum

Hobbes

It's true if your programmers are idiots and don't know how to code a windows application.

Blitzkrieger

*cough* microsoft *cough*

SheroN

Did the doctor tell you HOW to exit the applicaitons if you're not supposed to click the 'X' ?

Hobbes

ALT+F then X or ALT-F4

Void

In a Win32 C++ application, clicking the "X", or hitting ALT-F4, or selecing CLOSE generates a WM_QUIT message. The programs then breaks out of it's main loop, unallocates it's objects and quits. Every C++ application I've seen works in this way, so I think what you saw on telly is rubbish. There is no difference between the method for shutting a program down (except CTRL-ALT-DELETE + End Task, this is bad).

Hobbes

It's possible to load stuff into memory then having the programmer cleaning it out by using the File Menu option rather then WM_QUIT.

Cake Fiend

As Hobbes said, if the programmer's a muppet, clicking the 'X' mightn't get rid of everything - e.g. I remember one of my first VB progs, where if you clicked the 'Quit' button or selected Close from the File menu, the game would exit fine, but if you clicked the 'X' the main form would disappear, but it would still show up in the Ctrl-Alt-Del window.

Gaddo

Poor programming in a VB application would cause those types of memory leaks. Sloppy coding that handles object cleanups only when the specific menu item for application termination is clicked would mean that terminating the application by another means would bypass this sub and these objects would remain in memory – hence the memory leakage.

Generally destroying those objects in VB, something that tends to be done automatically with OO languages, should be done in an event sub such as Form_Unload.

DeVore

As I understand it, even if you dont explicitly clean up objects in VB , there is a reaper-process which will automatically clean them up when it gets the WM_QUIT message.

As Void points out, all normal methods of shutting an application would generate the WM_QUIT message so the user-interface is irrelevant. I'd even suspect that CTRL ALT DEL and End Task would try sending a WM_QUIT message into that programs message queue before taking more drastic measures. I'd like to think it does

The power and the achilles heel of VB is that it hides this stuff away from you.

Tom.

Gaddo

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by DeVore:
As I understand it, even if you dont explicitly clean up objects in VB , there is a reaper-process which will automatically clean them up when it gets the WM_QUIT message.</font>

I believe not in the case of, for example, externally instantiated ActiveX objects. Another consideration is the cleanup of any temp files may also not be properly handled.

Paladin

But the bottom line is that we all still click the 'x' ya?

Blitzkrieger

there was some ****ing idiot on that a few weeks ago. I was playing tfc while listening to it so I might have details wrong. I think he was asking why he couldn't access his homepage after running dial-up-networking. He couldn't seem to grasp clicking on Internet Explorer

Bard

Sounds like wubbish to me...

/me clicks the X to close boards.ie window

ButcherOfNog

the only way to be sure is to reboot yer PC everytime you shutdown an application, then boot up again and load the next application you wish to use.

Hobbes

I'd go with noggys suggestion.