memory useage steadily climbing

I use the sidebar gadget that measures CPU usage and memory usage, with ease. Very simple yet, so useful. Windows is running great, performance is close to the day I installed it. ((Dave has always had luck with getting Microsoft products to work good... I just have the touch)) But recently, At first when the system starts up, memory useage hanged around 23% for the longest time. In the past few weeks the 23% has risen to about 52%. A driver update, and the updates provided my Microsoft are the only things installed on this machine since that magicall memory allocation age of 23%. I have noticed a slight degradation in raw performance. ((4 minutes to get to login + 1 minute to load everything up.)) I am not having a fit over it, since every version of windows has done this to me, so I am used to this happening. Now that my poking and proding has a better chance of being heard, I can blab about it.... Anyways, what is the deal with that? I have a couple of theories, but I'll save that for when someone cares to hear about it. -- My cobra went crazy because I play the wrong tune and it hit me in the eye with it''s teeth.
P4-530 3.0 Ghz 1GB RAM Nvidia GeForce 6600GT ASUS P5 P-800 ATI TV-Wonder Elite Motorola L7 SLVR

The sidebar had a large memory leak back in Alpha, it's possible it still isn't 100% fixed.
"Dr. Gonzo" wrote in message

I use the sidebar gadget that measures CPU usage and memory usage, with ease. Very simple yet, so useful. Windows is running great, performance is close to the day I installed it. ((Dave has always had luck with getting Microsoft products to work good... I just have the touch)) But recently, At first when the system starts up, memory useage hanged around 23% for the longest time. In the past few weeks the 23% has risen to about 52%. A driver update, and the updates provided my Microsoft are the only things installed on this machine since that magicall memory allocation age of 23%. I have noticed a slight degradation in raw performance. ((4 minutes to get to login + 1 minute to load everything up.)) I am not having a fit over it, since every version of windows has done this to me, so I am used to this happening. Now that my poking and proding has a better chance of being heard, I can blab about it.... Anyways, what is the deal with that? I have a couple of theories, but I'll save that for when someone cares to hear about it. -- My cobra went crazy because I play the wrong tune and it hit me in the eye with it''s teeth.
P4-530 3.0 Ghz 1GB RAM Nvidia GeForce 6600GT ASUS P5 P-800 ATI TV-Wonder Elite Motorola L7 SLVR