Critical Windows 7 Bug Could Delay Launch

Submitted by lalit on August 5, 2009 - 7:24pm.

Microsoft is planning to launch Windows 7 on October 23rd, however InfoWorld is reporting that a critical memory leak bug could derail product launch plans. Randall Kennedy of InfoWorld writes:

“The bug in question – a massive memory leak involving the chkdsk.exe utility – appears when you attempt to run the program against a secondary (that is, not the boot partition) hard disk using the “/r” (read and verify all file data) parameter. The problem affects both 32- and 64-bit version of Windows 7 and is classified as a “showstopper” in that it can cause the OS to crash (Blue Screen of Death) as it runs out of physical memory.”

Microsoft is blaming the chipset drivers for the problem, but the bug exists in VMware, which uses its own virtualized chipset drivers. Users are reporting that same bug is present in Windows Server 2008 R2 also. Randall concludes by saying:

“A file system-level bug, at this late stage in development cycle, should be considered a showstopper by most IT organizations. What this latest episode has taught me is that no major release of Windows – not even one that is more or less a supersized patch of previous version – deserves a pass, and that the old wisdom of “wait for the first service pack” still applies with Windows 7.”