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Approximately 200 or more SELECT boxes in HTML causes slow and unstable performance in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition

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Symptoms

When approximately 200 or more SELECT elements are placed in an HTML page and displayed on Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Internet Explorer speed and stability decrease.

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Cause

This problem occurs because the operating system reaches its resource limits for window handles.

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Resolution

To work around this problem, redesign the HTML page so that Internet Explorer displays only some of the SELECT boxes at a particular time. For example, if you have a long form that contains many SELECT boxes, separate the form into several pages and make sure that each page has no more than 50 SELECT boxes.

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More information

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

  1. Create a .htm file and paste the following code:
    <HTML>
<BODY>
<select>
  <option>1</option>
  <option>2</option>
  <option>3</option>
</select><br>
</BODY>
</HTML>
  2. Copy and paste the <SELECT> tag until you have created 300 SELECT elements.
  3. Open the .htm file on Windows 98 or Windows 95, and scroll through the long page. Drawing errors may occur, overall Windows performance may decrease significantly, and Windows may report low system resources. Eventually, Internet Explorer may become unstable.

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References

For additional information about how to work around this problem, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
290102 How to use a few <SELECT> tags to implement a large table
For additional information about Windowed and Windowless elements, refer to the "Summary" section of the following article, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
177378 How the z-index attribute works for HTML elements
For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/

http://support.microsoft.com/iep

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Properties

Retired KB Content Disclaimer
This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.

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Keywords: kbdhtml, kbprb, KB265489

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Article Info
Article ID : 265489
Revision : 5
Created on : 3/29/2007
Published on : 3/29/2007
Exists online : False
Views : 606