A clarification on Handle

Good morning.

In AntiVirus, Norton Internet Secuirity ,in the settings, Tag general monitoring settings,
what is the Handle, if you explain it in a simple way, if you activate such functions?
Thanks to those who will provide clarification.

Handles are pretty complicated, but to simplify it hugely, they are indicators that a file is being use in various possible ways.

 

Many programs will increase the handle count a lot, by design, so enabling this might (will) lead to false alarms. Besides, handles are not anything the average user needs to be concerned with, unless maybe troubleshooting a suspected handle leak.

The operating system (e.g. Windows) has a limited number of resources that it can use. By design Handles is one such resource. It works this way. An application (say Norton or Excel) by design sometimes need to use some or these limited resources, So lets say Excel wants to create a new file. Excel calls an API (Application Programming Interface) CreateFile. If the function succeeds then Windows allocates a Handle in the application Handle Table. You might say a Handle is rather like a flag attached to a process. A second limit is the amount of memory allocated to store the handle table.

 

Keeping an eye on handles (particular % of total used) is an indicator of potential heavy use. In modern operating systems you are unlikely to reach handles limits as in earlier versions. However, badly written applications can leak handles in which handles continued to be marked long after their purpose was achieved. That is, poor programming leaving handles allocated when they should have bene closed. But this is altogether another issue.

Good morning.
Thank you for making this speech.
Last question on this problema.

About configuration firewal,
advice that the handle parameter remains off, or turn it off.
Thanks and a happy 2013

Trust me this was no speech. The speech lecture version is 1 1/2 hrs long! he he!

I dont see a need to have the parameter turned on, but you now refer to firewal(sic) and I wasnt aware this parameter is in firewall settings.