Microsoft KB Archive/156735

= WOW Applications Stack Fault When Launched by a Service =

Article ID: 156735

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006

-

APPLIES TO


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

-



This article was previously published under Q156735



SYMPTOMS
Windows on Windows (WOW), or 16-bit Windows applications, may terminate with a stack fault error when launched by a Windows NT service. The stack fault error will look similar to the following:

Application Error caused a stack fault in module UNKNOWN at address 00c7:4394f Will Close.



CAUSE
WOW applications create a secure shared memory region during startup that allows only logged on users access. When a service launches a second WOW application, the resulting process will attempt to open the existing shared memory region. Because the security context of the process started by a service is not purely interactive, when it attempts to access the existing shared memory region, it gets an access denied error. The second WOW process will continually try to access the existing shared memory region until a stack fault occurs and it terminates.



RESOLUTION
Wow32.dll and Vdmdbg.dll were modified to allow non-logged on users access to the shared memory region.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K

Additional query words: prodnt vb schedule

Keywords: kbnetwork KB156735

-

[mailto:TECHNET@MICROSOFT.COM Send feedback to Microsoft]

© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.