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Vista Runs Out of Memory While Copying Files

Posted by kdawson on Tue Oct 16, 2007 02:02 PM
from the how-hard-can-it-be dept.
Bug Operating Systems Software Windows
ta bu shi da yu writes "It appears that, incredibly, Vista can run out of memory while copying files. ZDNet is reporting that not only does it run out of memory after copying 16,400+ files, but that 'often there is little indication that file copy operations haven't completed correctly.' Apparently a fix was scheduled for SP1 but didn't make it; there is a hotfix that you must request."
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Firehose:Out of memory in Vista while... copying files? by ta bu shi da yu (687699)
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Vista Runs Out of Memory While Copying Files 25 Comments More /

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  • That's OK then (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sub Zero 992 (947972) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:04PM (#20998957)
    the box I "make use of" has just 15,000 mp3s...

  • Billy G says (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:05PM (#20998971)
    16k files should be enough for everybody.

    • Re:Billy G says (Score:5, Informative)

      by Seismologist (617169) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:13PM (#20999155)
      Found the quote on wikiquote [wikiquote.org]:

      I laid out memory so the bottom 640K was general purpose RAM and the upper 384 I reserved for video and ROM, and things like that. That is why they talk about the 640K limit. It is actually a limit, not of the software, in any way, shape, or form, it is the limit of the microprocessor. That thing generates addresses, 20-bits addresses, that only can address a megabyte of memory. And, therefore, all the applications are tied to that limit. It was ten times what we had before. But to my surprise, we ran out of that address base for applications within--oh five or six years people were complaining.
  • At the end, there will be free therapy. And Cake!

  • It's because (Score:5, Funny)

    by zsouthboy (1136757) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:09PM (#20999035)
    they can only send 16,000 files to the RIAA and MPAA to check, at once.

  • Bad summery (Score:5, Informative)

    by gravis777 (123605) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:27PM (#20999411)
    Apparently the submitter skimmed the article, and decided to post up a Vista bash on Slashdot.

    FTA:

    The "Out of Memory" error (which is affectionately known at the PC Doc HQ as the "Out of Cheese" error ... don't ask why ...) is one of the biggest and most baffling of Vista's file handling problems has been occurs when a Vista user (running Kaspersky Anti Virus 6 or 7) tries to copy a large number of files (~16,400)
    Apparently its just a problem with this antivirus program running in Vista. I move large amounts of files around in Vista quite often (granted, its Vista 64), sometimes well over 20,000 files at a time, and have never run into this issue.

  • Not Just Vista (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cmacb (547347) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:28PM (#20999431) Homepage Journal
    I don't think there has ever been a version of Windows that could deal with large numbers of files. Particularly if you are using the GUI interface. The whole thing is a toy operating system, really.

    A few years ago, while investigating a similar problem with a production server (a SERVER not a client machine) the machine would gradually grind to a halt doing the copy, while still responding (but slowly) to other operations.

    I found that the "copy" command did much better than a drag and drop operation, but still would have a problem eventually. Finally, I found that this was a known problem, and that to solve it, a dedicated MS employee had written a utility called "robocopy" the "robo" not being for "robot", but for "robust" (really, it said that!).

    Using that usually got the job done, much more slowly than it should have, but at least I didn't have to re-boot the machine daily to clear things up.

    Now that Gates is too busy with other things to take tours of the data center, really, Microsoft should do itself a favor and ditch the VMS underpinnings of Windows (some of which they have probably forgotten how to maintain) and build your nice GUI on top of BSD or something similar. That way you won't break your budget (in manpower and electricity) trying to match the Google server farms.

    Once that's done you will have the experience needed to do the same on the desktop. You will be doing the world, and yourselves a favor. Thanks in advance!
    • Isn't it a little odd that if you strip off the first and last digits of the number "16,400", it's 640, as in 'no one needs more than 640k"?

    • No more going back to XP? (Score:5, Funny)

      by dtouchet (1065652) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:08PM (#20999025) Homepage
      M$ is scared that people will try to copy their documents to another computer before reverting back to XP. Smart, very smart Micro$oft! On a tech note, what kind of number is 14,600? I would have thought 16,384 would be better.

      • Re:No more going back to XP? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:17PM (#20999233)
        > I would have thought 16,384 would be better.

        It probably is 16384.

        "16400" is clueless technical writerspeak for "The developer said '16,384', and the style guide says to use three significant digits".

        (Alternate explanation: "The developer said '0x4000', and the style guide says 'convert to decimal' as well as 'if it's not a round number, use three significant digits'")

        There are enclued technical writers, but 16400 is so close to 16384 that it makes me suspect that the author of the MSKB article isn't one of them.

    • Re:Maybe this stems from... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by purpledinoz (573045) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:19PM (#20999269)
      How the F%$^ can this be a problem? A file copy is a simple operation. There's simply no excuse for this... This should have never been a problem in the first place. What pisses me off is that I need to buy a new laptop, Vista is now forced down my throat, and I have no option to get XP pre-installed.

    • Re:Actual info... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Phil246 (803464) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:09PM (#20999057)
      actually, fta:

      Although the problem occurs where users are running Kaspersky security products, it's a kernel leak that lies at the root of problem (the problem's not confined to systems running Kaspersky software, that just that this application seems to exacerbate the issue).

      • Re:Actual info... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:21PM (#20999319)
        Actually, the bug is in the shell, not the kernel and only files with altnerate data streams trigger the leak. The KB article that Adrian links to states that very clearly, but he's been on an anti-Windows rampage lately that's blinded him to the facts.

        Very few files have data streams, so the vast majority of users won't ever see a problem. Kaspersky choses to pollute every single file with a stream, however, which is why systems with it installed exhibit the problem.

        • Re:Actual info... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DamnStupidElf (649844) <Fingolfin@linuxmail.org> on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:40PM (#20999631)
          Very few files have data streams, so the vast majority of users won't ever see a problem. Kaspersky choses to pollute every single file with a stream, however, which is why systems with it installed exhibit the problem.

          So it's Kaspersky's fault that alternate data streams are apparently no longer supported by Vista, despite being a basic part of NTFS?

        • Re:Actual info... (Score:5, Funny)

          by truthsearch (249536) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:55PM (#20999915) Homepage Journal
          only files with altnerate data streams trigger the leak

          Well that's what you get for crossing the streams. Egon warned us. Kaspersky's risking total protonic reversal. I guess they were fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing.

    • OLE mem leak; only affects 'extended attrib' files (Score:5, Informative)

      by I'm Don Giovanni (598558) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:16PM (#20999209)
      According to the cited "hotfix" link, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942435/en-us [microsoft.com] , the problem is due to an OLE memory link when dealing with files that have "extended attributes".

      This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:
        * The files include extended attributes.
        * You copy lots of files in a single operation.

      CAUSE
      This problem occurs because of a memory leak in the Windows OLE component. This memory leak is triggered by the way that Windows Explorer deals with the extended attributes of the files.

    • Re:Cumulative copies! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:10PM (#20999073) Journal
      If you are using Vista as a server, you pretty much deserve what ever happens to you.

    • I'm a little suspicious (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:19PM (#20999253)
      The reason being is I've setup a Vista system and copied about 100,000 files (totaling about 60GB) drive to drive in a single operation, without error. So while I'm not saying this isn't a Vista error, I'm wondering what else has to be done to trigger it. The persisting across reboots, even if you break it down smaller really makes it sound like another program is somehow interfering with the copy. I'll have to mess around with it at work, we have Vista test machines and Cadence installs north of 250,000 files when you install its libraries. I know it installs fine, though that isn't a copy strictly speaking as it is files being extracted from archives.

      I'm just wondering if perhaps there isn't more to this than just "OMG Vista runs out of memory!" If it is a memory issue, why then haven't I encountered it, doing far larger amounts of files?

    • Re:Vista (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Strudelkugel (594414) * on Tuesday October 16 2007, @02:12PM (#20999113)

      I have 13K+ music tracks on a backup disk. If I try to copy them with the Explorer UI, it does nothing - No error message or anything. I reverted to Robocopy, which works fine. You must be doing the same thing. Doesn't anyone at Microsoft have a big music collection to copy, or do they just use their Macs and iPods for that? ;-)

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