Outlook 2007 - Utlimate Ed. MEMORY LEAK OUTLOOK.EXE

[Adena]

There appears to be a memory leak in Outlook 2007.
See the memory units in taskman incrementally increase throughout the day.
At this point it has been running most of the afternoon and memory usage is
at 111,400 kb.
It also hangs when I want to shut down the pc, even if I have shut down the
program correctly, it still says "outlook.exe failed to shutdown"
In fact, even when I close Outlook, it is still running in taskman, counting
down incrementally in kb's... stopping around 64,472 kb.

If I end the process and restart - verifying it is completely up,
it runs initially at around 44,300 kb and going up... up... up... over a
period of hours.

It does not seem to stop increasing.

Looking for a hotfix possibly or a workaround.

Adena Wilder
MCSA - 2003, MCSE - 2000, MCSE+I NT4
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Nothing strange here. As long as there is system memory available the OS
will give it to apps that request it so that they can run faster. When you
start additional applications and there is no memory left available the
applications will return there additional memory.

The shutdown issue of Outlook is caused by 3rd party tools, most likely scan
software or still connected mobile devices that have a sync process running,
not letting the outlook.exe process actually quit when the main interface is
closed.

 

[Adena]

I can't believe that this can be 'by design' -
Applications that are in use, shouldn't incrementally take more memory
unless they are also incrementally releasing it when process threads are
completed. There is NO release of memory during use or resting periods.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

No, and why should it release unused memory even during idle time?

I believe you don't really understand how memory management works.

As long as there is memory available and no other applications or processes
are requesting it, Windows will assign the additional memory to applications
who can use it and are being used the most. This will keep the computer in
an optimal responsive state. Or do you rather see that your computer isn't
at all using memory that you have paid for?

 

[Adena]

I decided to research this further, due to your post. And in doing so, I
found a great article that does explain memory use in XP, that might vaguely
support your point as well as mine:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx

"... there is no unique "memory requirement" for an application or for the
system. When physical memory is scarce, you will pay frequent I/O penalties
as you go from operation to operation. When physical memory is abundant, the
system will use the memory to forestall these I/O penalties.

The operating system is constantly assessing the current situation and
choosing which pages to keep and which to get rid of. Thus, the number of
pages in use alone does not represent a measure of memory required. The
number of pages in use can be quite misleading, if taken in isolation. An
application's working set, the number of pages it has in memory, can at times
be quite large simply because there is no competition for the memory from
other running applications. Conversely, the working set may be quite small,
simply because all of the physical memory resources have been given over to
other applications."

But having this additional lesson on memory, still doesn't address my
concern. I am still seeing memory use in excess on my system by Outlook
ONLY. And it the only application on my system that has this issue. And I
run several programs simultaneously - I run 3 monitors on my system and do
quite a bit of multi-tasking.

I was just looking for a easy solution and obviously there isn't one.
I just wished you could have worded your response in a more respectful
manner, I feel slightly insulted.

Don't bother to respond, I will call MS support in LC, and talk to some of
my former colleagues in the Platforms Performance group if I decide to work

 

[Roady [MVP]]

No pun intended.

Your post still illustrates a normal scenario and there is no need to start
shouting (CAPS) "memory leak" from the start. As you now realize the memory
that Outlook gets assigned is dynamic and the way that it is being done also
depends on the OS that you are using (which you did not post).

Additionally the actual memory that Outlook gets assigned depends on the
amount of addins installed, the total amount of memory installed on the
system and the state that Outlook is in (which you all didn't post).

On a system with many Outlook addins installed, Outlook in the active state
and a lot of RAM in the system with Windows Vista you'll see a lot more
memory assigned to Outlook (could be way over 200MB), while on a system with
Windows Vista or XP with no Outlook addins, less than 512MB of RAM and
Outlook minimized to the Notification Area it could take 20MB or less.

In general the installed addins have the most effect on Outlook's maximum MB
usage.

You said that my post was insulting to you but note that your post can be
read the same way (CAPS usage, no facts checking, not posting all relevant
info but still claiming a memory leak). If not offensive to me than it could
still be interpreted that way to the Outlook developers. We simply tend to
assume here that we misread the post if we encounter that unless there is a
direct personal insult in a post.

 

[alexanderL]

Hello Roady,

But, how can you explain that, when you start a new mail form in Outlook and
then you close the form (without sending the mail), the memory use of Outlook
is still raising. You must minimize the outlook container application, in
this case the memory is released. So my conclusion is, that when user kill
an Outlook send form the form is only hidden but not released form memory,
waiting that the Garbage Collector will remove it from the memory? Or the
disposing of the form occur only on Resize event of Outlook.

This issue is and was bug in Outlook 2003 and still here????
Do you have any answer about this?

best regards

Alexander

 

[Roady [MVP]]

It's being kept in memory since there is no need to release it from memory
yet; Outlook is still active as an application and there is a high
likelihood that you'll start a new form. So as long as there is memory
available and as long as you don't perform any actions that have a higher
priority (likelihood to occur again or a new active application) there is no
need to release this memory.

Also even when you close Outlook and the outlook.exe process is stopped
there is still a bit of Outlook active in you system's memory. This is true
for pretty much all applications. Ever noticed that when you start an
application for the second time during a Windows session, it starts faster?

The memory management in XP and especially in Vista is a complex but
intelligent thing to make sure you have good use of all the memory that is
available in your system. The downside of this is that from a user
perspective memory leaks are harder to spot and that memory usage isn't a
direct indication anymore to track them like it was during Windows 98 for
example (if I left ICQ running as the only application for a day after a
clean boot, the Resource Monitor would drop to <10% available at the end of
the day).

I'll admit that you indeed still could have spotted a memory leak but
looking at memory usage alone at this point isn't conclusive. Basically you
should run through this with the developer to see what exactly is going on.
Reporting it to Microsoft as a potential bug would be a good first step.
Don't be surprised to hear that they keep it in memory on purpose for the
above reasons though. If Vista does its thing, it will only improve your
system's performance and not degrade it ;-)