Calling a 32-bit Application From WOW Causes Memory Leak

Last reviewed: April 11, 1997
Article ID: Q125173

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 3.5
Microsoft Windows NT Server version 3.5

SYMPTOMS

An application that uses the 16 bit-subsystem (WOW) to call a 32-bit application repetitively will exhibit a memory leak. Memory is lost during this automated process and appears as a memory leak in Performance Monitor. This can be verified by monitoring MEMORY: Pool Paged Bytes, Pool NonPaged Bytes and Committed Bytes. Eventually the system starts to thrash for bytes to use during the process and appears to make no progress. In cases where the problem occurs on an NTFS partition, the following STOP message appears:

   STOP 0x4d(0x0000000B, 0x2010,0x0, 0x4594)
   NO_PAGES_AVAILABLE
   P4-0300 irql:1f SYSVER 0xf0000327

This problem does not occur when calling a 16-bit application from the 16- bit subsystem.

WORKAROUND

To avoid this problem, call only 16-bit applications from a 16-bit subsystem.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server version 3.5. This problem was corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Windows NT version 3.5. 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 blue trap vdm fatal
Keywords : kbbug3.50 kbnetwork nt32ap ntstop
Version : 3.5
Platform : WinNT

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Last reviewed: April 11, 1997
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