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

[FatAlb3rt]

Optimizations aren't supposed to crash the computer.

The original report I read was full of drama, too much IMHO, and the bug could be fixed in the first service update.

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

[sycotic]

Have a read of this: http://www.bluescreenofdeath.org/?p=94#comment-134

 

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. Iâ(TM)m currently completed the chkdsk scan with no BSODâ(TM)s or computer sluggishness. Feel free to do this and try it for yourselves. Again, there is no Bug.
Thanks all.

Re:RAM optimization

[Your.Master]

Hey, but it's nothing like that. Using all of your RAM to check a disk for damage and repair it in response to a user's specific request is not like having Outlook open in the background.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:RAM optimization

[HermMunster]

I regularly put customer's hard drives into a different computer as a secondary drive and run chkdsk. 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. Should we let you take those support calls?

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

"isn't not unresponsive"

Congratulations! You have plumbed a new depth in illiteracy. That's a triple negative. Did you really mean responsive or unresponsive?

What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

It seems that if you install Windows 7 on the second hard drive, it will put it's system reserved boot partition on the first drive. This absolutely boggles my mind. Now I need both hard drives just to boot my system? I discovered this when Windows 7 fucked up my Chameleon installation. Then my Hackintosh wouldn't boot into OS X until I reinstalled Chameleon from the iAtkos disc. Then I had to unplug the OS X drive and reinstall Windows 7 so it would stick to it's own goddamned drive and leave the others alone.

Bad, BAD fucking move, Microsoft. Now Windows 7 can easily fuck up unrecognized partitions on other drives during installation. I really hope that gets fixed in the final version.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except during the install it says: "the system reserved partition will be installed on the first boot device."

I remember wondering why it was 100MB myself when I saw that.

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?

[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:What about this one?

[lawnboy5-O]

Its NOT a Bug.... its a FEATURE! It's from M$ correct? That's the way its supposed to be...

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?

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Anyways you could always copy the files and boot sector from the small partition to the Windows 7 one and raze the small one, then you just need to edit the BCD registry using EasyBCD or bootedit.exe to point to the correct partition on boot. But yeah those are both WINDOWS tools... but bootedit.exe should be available from Windows 7 Setup on the DVD if you mess up and can't boot into Windows (press SHIFT+F10), and fixboot.exe can install the boot sector onto any partition.

And then they say Linux is difficult?

Re:What about this one?

[thetoadwarrior]

Well, at least it no longer overwrites GRUB when installing (or at least Win7 RC didn't do that) - while XP always did.

That's a bug and will be fixed in Win 7's first service pack.

Re:7 Bashing

[godrik]

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/windowspartition

my pleasure.

Nonissue

[Seth Kriticos]

If it is really such a serious bug, than it will be fixed with the first installation and following windows update. (or OEM patches).

No sane person runs a vanilla installation of windows.

Actually, in the first months when win 7 gets released, a lot of even more serious bugs will surface (because of the wide exposure). They also will be fixed and integrated in the update service. It's known that the first months of release is always the release test and fix cycle.

This is just how things go.

Disclaimer: I don't like windows, this is just an objective view.

Payback is a...

[gklinger]

Dear Microsoft,

It sucks when people spread FUD, doesn't it?

Re:Proper facts please

[Desler]

Because kdawson is slashdot's resident FUD artist. If he actually posted factual stories that didn't contain overblown anti-Microsoft FUD he'd be fired.