32-bit Excel "Insufficient resources to perform ..." error

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AutomationMan
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:55 am
OLAP Product: Cognos Express
Version: 10.1
Excel Version: 2010

32-bit Excel "Insufficient resources to perform ..." error

Post by AutomationMan »

Apologies if I am posting on an already addressed topic, but my searches have failed to uncover anything quite the same.
Why a Windows / Excel topic on the TM1 forum? ... because the issue predominantly rears its head when the COGNOS client is loaded and I want to know if any other COGNOS users have experienced this.

The Environment
OS = Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Excel = Office Professional Plus 2010 (Ver 14.0.6129.5000 32-bit)
COGNOS (Perspectives?) Excel client = 10.1.0.0

The Issue
Since moving to Windows 7 64-bit OS, power users of Excel 2010 (previously on WinXP Pro 32-bit) now get sporadic instances of “Insufficient resources to perform this operation” or "Out of Memory" when trying to Save, Open or Print, or simply that mouse clicks no longer activate the Excel menu items in any given instance of Excel
This is particularly prevalent when they are using their Cognos connection within Excel
It only effects individual instances of Excel (say they have three separate instances of Excel running, only one might fail)

The Cause(s)
Extensive research has identified this to be an exhaustion of the memory-management resources being consumed by a variety 32-bit consumers, one of which is the 32-bit Cognos client

A more detailed explanation follows, but I really want to know is, are any other users out there are running the 64-bit Windows OS and 32-bit Office Excel combination with the Cognos 10.1 client, and have any of those people experienced any of the above errors?
I've tried all manner of tweaks and workarounds but short of moving to the 64-bit version of Office, I've run out of ideas.
Unfortunately that option requires a Cognos client which will support the 64-bit version of Office! :cry:

Summary of research
32-bit apps running on 64-bit O/S require additional resources to manage the extended memory addressing available (Handles, PTE’s, User-mode Stack, Kernel-mode stack and Resident available memory) … these are taken from the 32-bit memory resources pool which gets allocated to every instance of a 32-bit app …i.e. 32-bit Excel 2010 in this case.

As certain types of data are loaded within spread-sheet(s) that data draws from this non-pageable resource pool, eventually exhausting same.
This is NOT pageable memory we are talking about so adding as much memory as we like to the system (beyond a basic level) will have zero beneficial effect.
Loading add-ins, extra tool-bars, graphics, opening menus and a myriad other actions all consume these finite resources, worse yet, they are not all returned as worksheets are closed …. until you close that entire instance of Excel and start afresh.

The net result for us is that loading the Cognos client which runs in the same 32-bit address spaces as the Excel instance - OR - loading particular spread-sheets (even though relatively small on-disk [< 1.5MB]) can get 32-bit Excel on a 64-bit O/S to the point of “Insufficient resources to perform this operation”
NB It turns out that under XP they were already “close” to that threshold anyhow

I now have many hours of Perfmon traces for Excel, Cognos, & other apps on both XP (32-bit) and Win7 (64-bit) along with reams of MS and other web research, supporting what is apparently a “known problem” but one which doesn’t get talked about much apart from the many (100’s? of) frustrated users across many web forums who are still trying to work out why their Excel doesn’t work the same under 64-bit windows.


For all the technical detail and traces etc - email me ... too much to present here
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