Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Handles on win2k server 1
- Thread starter HomerJ
- Start date
-
1
- #2
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
In Windows, a handle is a reference to an internal data structure of the system. For example, when you work with a window, the system gives you a handle to the window. The system informs you that the window you are working with is window number 142, for example. From that point on, your application can ask the system to operate on window number 142—moving it, resizing it, reducing it to an icon, and so on.
Many Windows API functions, in fact, have a handle as the first parameter. This doesn't apply only to functions operating on windows; other Windows API functions have as their first parameter a GDI handle, a menu handle, an instance handle, a bitmap handle, or one of the many other handle types.
In other words, a handle is an internal code a programmer can use to refer to a specific element handled by the system, including a window, a bitmap, an icon, a memory block, a cursor, a font, a menu, and so on. They become useful when a programmer wants to call a Windows API function that is not supported by the progamming language he/she are using.
*****Definition adapted from information found on
I don't know of an upper limit on handles - I'd imagine it's very high. You wouldn't exceed it with 64 users unless you were running an application that had entered some kind of loop whereby processes were repeatedly and rapidly being spawned.
You can use handle.exe from to see information on open handles for any or all system processes. It's very useful for determining which process (and thereby, which user) has a particular file open.
Another incredibly useful tool is TaskManagerEx from which is an extension to Windows Task Manager that has the option to show a process's Handle Count (amongst many options!).
Hope this is helpful CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk
Many Windows API functions, in fact, have a handle as the first parameter. This doesn't apply only to functions operating on windows; other Windows API functions have as their first parameter a GDI handle, a menu handle, an instance handle, a bitmap handle, or one of the many other handle types.
In other words, a handle is an internal code a programmer can use to refer to a specific element handled by the system, including a window, a bitmap, an icon, a memory block, a cursor, a font, a menu, and so on. They become useful when a programmer wants to call a Windows API function that is not supported by the progamming language he/she are using.
*****Definition adapted from information found on
I don't know of an upper limit on handles - I'd imagine it's very high. You wouldn't exceed it with 64 users unless you were running an application that had entered some kind of loop whereby processes were repeatedly and rapidly being spawned.
You can use handle.exe from to see information on open handles for any or all system processes. It's very useful for determining which process (and thereby, which user) has a particular file open.
Another incredibly useful tool is TaskManagerEx from which is an extension to Windows Task Manager that has the option to show a process's Handle Count (amongst many options!).
Hope this is helpful CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk
- Thread starter
- #3
- Status
Similar threads
- Question
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question