Cannot Start More Than 100 Services

ID: Q175937

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.51, 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.51, 4.0

SYMPTOMS

The number of simultaneously running services is limited to 100 (excluding all shared services that run under the Services.exe process, such as Alerter, Browser, EventLog, LanmanServer, LanmanWorkstation, LMHOSTS, Messenger, and so on).

Trying to start an additional service leads to the following error message:

All pipe instances are busy.

CAUSE

The Service Control Manager (that is, Services.exe) creates a pipe for each of the services it starts. This pipe is used for interprocess communication between the Service Control Manager and the process of the service. The maximum number of pipe instances is hard-coded to 100.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kberrmsg ntsecurity NTSrvWkst
Version : winnt:3.51,4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbinfo