well!!...*digesting slowly*....some of that is not 'new' to me, but much of it is was said in new & pretty consise ways, and I think I see hazy forms thru the fog now.

Since I DO have some freeware, it may be that I have increased my 'leaks' to where I just have to live with it, or carefully uninstall things and do LONG careful tests to see which things are the problem....since time is at a premium, I may just have to live with it...*sigh*. I have seen some programs which tell you exactly what programs, DLLs, plug-ins..etc,, are running and how much memory they are using, but I doubt that they monitor 'lost' memory when things are closed.

I get the impression that there is memory 'space' allocated to run 'X', and then when 'X' is closed, some of that space is still allocated and un-available even though it is not required any longer....

I suspect that one answer is to have 3 or 4 computers, all set up for different tasks, one for big graphics, one for surfing the WWW, one for text and storage, and one for games...etc., [with storage devices to transfer needed files between them when necessary]...(and I suppose lots of guys do just that..)

well, thank you JIRK,*grin*.. for the essay.....(used to live in not-so-remote Kansas, myself..Wichita & Lawrence)..It doesn't solve anything 'specific', but it MAY prevent me from just sputtering at the screen...and it is about as close to a clear explanation as I have seen!

Now, if I can find a 'free' analysis program to test all my OTHER programs for weak memory-return code...*BIG grin*