Microsoft Denies Windows 7 "Showstopper Bug"

Barence writes "Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has taken the unusual step of responding in the comments of a blog posting that claimed Windows 7 was suffering from a potential 'showstopper bug'. Stories had been sweeping the Internet that using the chkdsk.exe utility on a second hard disk would lead to a massive memory leak bringing the operating system to its knees in seconds. Responding to a blog post titled 'Critical Bug in Windows 7 RTM,' Sinofsky wrote: 'While we appreciate the drama of "critical bug" and then the pickup of "showstopper" that I've seen, we might take a step back and realize that this might not have that defcon level.' He signs off with the words: 'deep breath.'"

Comments

RAM optimization

[sopssa]

I wonder how this obviously one-sided summary even got posted -- it just sounds like a calling for bashing from people who dont read the article. Here's another snippet from Steven's response:

We had one beta report on the memory usage, but that was resolved by design since we actually did design it to use more memory. But the design was to use more memory on purpose to speed things up, but never unbounded â" we requset the available memory and operate within that leaving at least 50M of physical memory. Our assumption was that using /r means your disk is such that you would prefer to get the repair done and over with rather than keep working.

And it does make sense for two reasons:
1) Windows has to lock the drive anyways, so its better to get it done fast.
2) You CAN spend RAM. If the whole RAM isn't used, you're just wasting it. In this case chkdsk.exe will use dynamically what there is left, making the process faster. How is this a bad thing?

Rather than a bug or memory leak, this seems like an optimization.

Re:RAM optimization

[GreenEnvy22]

Agreed, this is a non issue, or at worst, a very tiny issue. For the very tiny amount of people out there that will run "Chkdsk -r" on a secondary partition, they may see almost all their ram used up while it is scanning the disk. If they have prexisting hardware or software glitches, it might blue screen on them. For the 90% of consumers who would never run chkdsk, and who don't have more then one parition, this is a complete non-issue.

Re:RAM optimization

[Nimey]

Haven't read many kdawson stories?

Re:RAM optimization

[geekoid]

No, it's not tiny, in fact it could be a huge issue; however this is a chip set problem, not a win 7 problem.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

2) You CAN spend RAM. If the whole RAM isn't used, you're just wasting it. In this case chkdsk.exe will use dynamically what there is left, making the process faster. How is this a bad thing?

This sounds a lot like the Outlook 2007 discussion on Vista (and some reports on XP). Vista has "advanced memory management" and Outlook "continually asks for RAM, as long as some is available". The result? Outlook allocates ~700M, according to the Task Manager process list, while the Physical Memory free (on a 3G system) reports 6% free. Closing Outlook brings the ram free percentage up to %60. Some MS MVP said just what you said "The RAM is available, so Outlook uses it and the program responds faster, that's a good thing", completely disregarding the fact that the computer is near unresponsive to everything else. A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed". Using over 2G of RAM to open 3 emails is absurd, using 1G for texture and sound data is more reasonable.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Excerpt from parent should be added as an update to the summary.

Re:RAM optimization

[Zancarius]

Your math sort of makes it seem like 4-5% of a market isn't a lot to account for, yet that 4-5% means in terms of the OS market hundreds of millions of users.

I believe the OP said this:

For the 90% of consumers who would never run chkdsk, and who don't have more then one parition, this is a complete non-issue.

So really, it would be 10%. I sincerely doubt, however, that this chkdsk issue would affect more than an incredibly small number of systems. In other words, the grandparent is right. It's a non-issue.

Re:RAM optimization

[Desler]

So the statement "there is no bug" is blatantly false.

The GP you are responding to never claimed there was no bug at all. What is being said is that the bug is in the chipset controller driver or somewhere else, not in chkdsk like this FUD submission is trying to claim. Maybe next time you should learn some reading comprehension.

Re:RAM optimization

[m.ducharme]

I missed the part where having all your e-mail in one big file is a good thing. I've never had any problems with "slow to load" e-mails, whether I was using an offline e-mail client or being served e-mails from a webmail address. What exactly is so good about the PST/OST file that it's worth keeping EVERYTHING in RAM for? (I'm not being entirely sarcastic here, if there's a good reason for this, I'd like to know it).

Re:RAM optimization

[AmiMoJo]

This obsession with memory usage is silly.

RAM is very, very cheap now, less than £10 a gigabyte. I configure my software to use lots of RAM, because I prefer a fast computer to one with lots of free memory.

Re:RAM optimization

[Blakey Rat]

This is utter bullshit:

This sounds a lot like the Outlook 2007 discussion on Vista (and some reports on XP). Vista has "advanced memory management" and Outlook "continually asks for RAM, as long as some is available". The result? Outlook allocates ~700M, according to the Task Manager process list, while the Physical Memory free (on a 3G system) reports 6% free. Closing Outlook brings the ram free percentage up to %60. Some MS MVP said just what you said "The RAM is available, so Outlook uses it and the program responds faster, that's a good thing", completely disregarding the fact that the computer is near unresponsive to everything else. A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed". Using over 2G of RAM to open 3 emails is absurd, using 1G for texture and sound data is more reasonable.

I'm running Outlook 2007 on Vista right now this instant, and it's using 92MB of RAM. Physical memory free = 57%.

Even if Outlook was using all but 6% of free RAM, why would that necessarily make your system "unresponsive to everything else?" 6% of RAM is plenty to keep your machine responsive, assuming it has a gig or more in it.

And this statement:

A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed".

Is doubly-retarded. RAM takes time to fill, yet takes no time to empty. Therefore, all software should fill as much RAM as feasible to make itself more responsive to the user. RAM isn't some physical object you "take away" from something else-- if Outlook allocates RAM than another process needs, the OS just overwrites it as needed.

Re:What about this one?

[Joe U]

don't you think while using a Hackintosh, trying to dual boot a beta OS, and probably some other crap you didn't mention that you might run into a few problems? And yeah, I am sure your dual boot hackintosh is on the top of the list for a fix.

Hi.

On the top of your browser, there's an address bar, after the http:/// and before the next / does the word 'slashdot.org' appear?

I'm assuming yes, so seriously, what did you expect?

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you install windows, Microsoft owns your machine. You should know this by now.

It's like selling your soul to the devil and then be surprised when he actually claims it.

Re:What about this one?

[Hurricane78]

How is that new? It is that way since Windows XP, and likely even the whole NT and old Windows line before that!

I know because I have this setup with Gentoo and XP on this computer, and I think I can remember it from Windows 98 too.

Re:What about this one?

[Judinous]

Windows has never played nice with other operating systems one the same machine. The first rule of multiple-booting has always been "install Windows first".

Re:What about this one?

[xtravagan]

You have obviously not installed many OS yourself, and if you really believe what you are writing you should probably stop installing those you already are installing. You can control exactly where and how you want any partitions to be, so even with windows 7. It has a certain default, which is to install a 100MB, let's call it, rescue partition.

Just pre partition the disk the way you want it and you won't have that extra partition. So perhaps the bad move is on your for not knowing what you are doing and still posting as if you did.

Re:Since when ...

[Desler]

The problem was never with Windows to begin with:

UPDATE: After emailing back and forth with the VP Sinofsky, it was found that the chkdsk /r tool is not at fault here. It was simply a chipset controller issue. Please update you chipset drivers to the current driver from your motherboard manufacturer. I did mine, and this fixed the issue. Yes it still uses alot of physical memory, because your checking for physical damage, and errors on the Harddrive your testing. I'm currently completed the chkdsk scan with no BSODÃ(TM)s or computer sluggishness. Feel free to do this and try it for yourselves. Again, there is no Bug. Thanks all.

http://www.bluescreenofdeath.org/?p=94#comment-134 Yay kdawson fud articles!

What?

[tjstork]

This sounds like more of an invented problem than a real one.

I have three hard drives in my machine, one IDE and two SATA. I change the order of the drives from my BIOS and put Windows 7 on one of the drives.

When I want to boot to a different drives, I flip the drive order in the BIOS and that way no OS sees any other. I have Linux on one drive, Windows Vista on another and Windows 7 on the third, and each has its own little world.

Why even worry about boot loaders and the like, when its so easy to pick a drive to boot from in the BIOS, and disks are so relatively cheap.

Re:What?

[Zancarius]

Don't you have a "Press F12 to select boot device" prompt somewhere between the memory test and the bootloader that would save a bit of time? Are you doing more in the BIOS than just change the boot order to prevent the Windowses from finding each others' drives through hardware enumeration at runtime? Are you elsewise abusing the way that XP and Vista bless secondary hard drives?

Not all machines are like Dells nor are all BIOSes created equal. For example, I tend to use Intel's reference boards at home, and they don't have an F12 option to select a boot device. I'd imagine tjstork's circumstance is similar to mine.

Really, it only takes about 5 seconds longer to go into BIOS and change the drive order and you're not likely to do it every boot. If booting between OSes were more of a concern, it's easy to install grub on one disk and use it to manage booting between all three. But if tjstork is happy with using BIOS, I can't see any reason why an extra key or bootloader would make much of a difference.

Re:What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

No dipshit, Hackintoshing has very little to do with it. As far as Windows 7 is concerned, it was simply another drive. That's all. The point of the matter is that it fucked up a partition that it didn't properly recognize. The same thing could happen to Linux installations as well. It's an ugly oversight that is NOT specific to Hackintoshes, so pull your head out of your ass.

Re:What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

My point is that the user shouldn't have to bloody worry about it. Why should I have to prepartition my drive just to keep Windows from messing with other drives? It should stick to the installation drive by default, not require extra steps to keep it from messing with other drives in the system. Plopping the 100MB system reserved partition on another drive by default means I need BOTH drives to boot, which is stupid. But yes, my bad for assuming Microsoft would do things in a logical fashion.

Re:What about this one?

[just_another_sean]

You're missing the point. Even if you pre-partition the second drive Windows still installs it's boot loader on the first. This is not just true of 7, it's been doing this since NT 4.

Brushing aside your "you should just know how to it" bs ( I thought stuff "just works" in Windows, it's teh easy!) it goes beyond understanding the partitioning. It's about behaving in a counter intuitive way that requires discovery on the user's part. I can
naturally assume that I'll be better off partitioning my own drive. It takes a real WTF moment to realize you have to rip out one of your drives before you install Windows if you don't want the unexpected behavior of your master boot record being on a different drive then the OS. Another poster said "install Windows first, that's the rule". Fine, I get that but it's still f'ng stupid.

Re:What about this one?

[Zancarius]

As far as Windows 7 is concerned, it was simply another drive.

You raise really good points. There is one unfortunate thing in the behavior of Windows' installation process when it comes to drives it doesn't understand. But first, an example:

Let's assume that you're installing Windows on a system with two hard disks. On the first disk exists Linux or BSD. You plan on using the bootloader to boot Windows (off the second disk). The second disk is blank. When you attempt to install Windows to the second disk, it will alert you that it needs to make changes (i.e. wipe the bootloader) on the first disk. It's possible a situation like that might result in unexpected changes, but it's not difficult to resolve--simply load a live CD and replace the bootloader. (At least, this prompt would occur with Windows XP--I have no idea with Windows 7 because of a habit I've acquired. Keep reading.)

However, I've never actually had windows make any unexpected alterations to anything other than the disk I was installing to. Perhaps it's partially thanks to a healthy dose of paranoia; whenever I install Windows to a dedicated disk--really, whenever I install any OS, I have a habit of unplugging all the drives I don't want to touch. As you alluded to, since the OP clearly didn't take such precautions, he sort of got what was coming to him.

Maybe my measures are a little excessive, but when I'm dealing with the prospect of having to reinstall several OSes just because of a stupid late-night mistake, a typo, or maybe a software bug, I'd rather take the time to make sure it can't happen. Not that this method isn't fraught with complications--it's possible to unplug the wrong drive. But, that's why you check it first to make sure it is the one you want to wipe!

So yes, you're exactly right. The OP really should have taken greater precautions with his data. It would've saved him a reinstall.

Re:What about this one?

[jim_v2000]

95% of users don't install Windows, much less a second OS. The other 5% should know enough to pull it off successfully.

The real issue: Some people are running scared

[benjymouse]

First a few facts

1. chkdsk.exe is a disk checking and file-system repair tool. Most users will never know about it.
2. The chkdsk functionality kan be invoked through Windows Explorer as well. Some users will find this tool if they deliberately are looking for it.
3. chkdsk.exe with the /r oprion (and *only* with the /r option) has been designed to allocate most of the available physical memory, but always leave at least 50M free. This is not a memory leak. It was a deliberate decision because using more memory will dramatically speed up the surface verification/repair process. Note, it will allocate from available memory, i.e. already allocated memory will not be forced out into paged/virtual memory. If this was a leak the allocation would go on and on, cause more and more swapping until the system trashed itself to death. But it's not. The system remains responsive and the memory is freed when chkdsk ends.
4. The crash condition appears to be an unrelated issue with chipset controller drivers. Propably this issue becomes more pronounced during periods with intensive disk usage and/or low memory conditions. It is not caused by chkdsk, it is a driver/controller issue which has been reported to be fixed by updating drivers to the latest version.

No, the real issue is that Microsoft appears to be slated for a massive success with Windows 7. At this point some Microsoft detractors will leap upon any issue in an attempt to spoil the party. In this category you find Randal C. Kennedy of InfoWorld who leapt on to this issue with blatant disregard for any facts. Even if the original blogger and mr. Kennedy were so stupid as to believe this issue was a memory leak and that it caused the crash, by their own account it would only manifest itself under very specific circumstances:

• chkdsk.exe must be invoked with the /R option to perform a surface scan/repair (this is the most radical option).
• chkdsk.exe must be invoked for a non-system partition (chkdsk must dismount the drive/partition - using /r on the system drive requires chkdsk to run during boot instead).

So, even if this was a bug, only users with

• 2 or more drives/partitions,
• one non-system exhibiting suspicious behavior to warrant a "surface scan".
• users able to find and launch the tool

No, this whole bruhaha has a distinct smell of desperation about it. And kdawson is - as usual - all to happy to assist.

Re:What about this one?

[Hatta]

Sure they do. Linux is the only operating system on my home computer. Someday a game may come out that I think is worthwhile, I'm open to installing Windows 7 then. If I can't do that without damaging my Linux install, they don't get my money.