Microsoft KB Archive/268722

= Access Violation in Cmd.exe Calling CreateProcess with Long Path =

Article ID: 268722

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4
 * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5
 * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6
 * Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition

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This article was previously published under Q268722



SYMPTOMS
Parent programs that spawn a child program pass an environment block to the spawned child. In cases in which an extremely long path (more than 1,900 bytes) exists in the parent environment, an access violation may occur during the startup of a child process. For example, this might occur when a Setup program (as a parent) starts another program as a child process.

The actual supported length for a path statement is 1,024 characters. Typically, a &quot;Path too long&quot; error message is generated when the path exceeds approximately 1,900 bytes. However, an extremely long path (more than 1,024 bytes but less than the amount that triggers the &quot;Path too long&quot; error message) may still generate an error message when a child process is spawned.

As the parent spawns a child process (calling CreateProcess), a new Cmd.exe session is started and some expansion of the inherited environment block occurs. The following error message may occur when the new environment block is initialized for the child process:

Cmd.exe - Application Error

The instruction at &quot;0x77f64bab&quot; referenced memory at &quot;0x0067006f&quot;. The memory could not be &quot;written&quot;.

Click on OK to terminate the application.



CAUSE
An incorrect initialization of a buffer is occurring.



RESOLUTION
A supported fix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Apply it only to computers that are experiencing this specific problem.

To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

NOTE: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:   Date        Time    Size     File name  Platform 07/20/2000 03:02p  208,144  Cmd.exe    Intel



WORKAROUND
To work around this issue, shorten the path statement length.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Keywords: kbbug kbfix kbqfe kbhotfixserver KB268722

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