CreateFile() Can Cause Leak in Paged Pool Memory

• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
• Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition version 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

Your computer running Windows NT may become unresponsive and may display an error message indicating that the computer is running low on virtual memory.

In addition, Performance Monitor shows a rise in paged pool memory usage that never declines.

CAUSE

This behavior may occur if a program makes a call to the Win32 application programming interface (API) function CreateFile(), and passes a drive letter that is mapped to a remote file system using the Windows NT redirector (this results in an error value of ERROR_INVALID_NAME). The Windows NT redirector did not release memory allocated to attempt this operation.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q152734 How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6.

Additional query words:

Keywords : NT4SP6Fix
Version : winnt:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbbug