Microsoft KB Archive/179827

= Blue Screens Caused by Pool Corruption Due to Registry Handle Leak =

Article ID: 179827

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q179827





SYMPTOMS
After a fairly long period of continuously using Attachmate Extra V6.3, the computer displays blue screen errors randomly.



CAUSE
These blue screen errors are caused by an application containing a registry handle leak. This leak occurs because an application continuously reopens a registry key but never closes it. After this has happened 65,535 times, the open instance count for this key wraps round to zero making the kernel think that there is no longer any open handles to this key. The next time an instance of the key is closed, the storage used by the kernel to reference the key is deleted.

However, any time subsequent to this that the key is opened or closed, the freed storage is written to again. This causes free pool corruption and eventually the system will crash when this freed storage is referenced in any way.



RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

152734 How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 4.

Additional query words: 4.0

Keywords: kbhotfixserver kbqfe kbbug kbfix kbqfe KB179827

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