Windows 7 RTM contains a chkdsk bug

[I.M.O.G.]

I think they just redesigned it, and made it work like garbage in win7, but it isn't really a bug perse. Defective by design is my vote at this point. Need more data points tho.

 

[Joeteck]

I think they just redesigned it, and made it work like garbage in win7, but it isn't really a bug perse. Defective by design is my vote at this point. Need more data points tho.

For the most part, the average user will not be using the CMD chkdsk vs the GUI. So this is really moot perse....

But I did notice this.. When using the GUI, there is a memory leak issue. If you cancel out of it, The memory usage stays..

and then I have to kill explorer.exe, and then re-run it to get my RAM back.

So the question here is: Why wouldnt the CMD chkdsk work the same as the GUI?? It clearly does not....

 

[SpoonMaN]

at this moment i am running these tests to see whats up, i have 8gb ram in this system and the external hd has 60gb of data on it. usage shot up to 7.65gb and has been slowly droping for the last few minutes


edit: this is not behaving like a memory leak at all. system perf has not droped enough that anybody would notice and it has been sitting at the same 7.09gb total used with 5.93 used by chkdsk its self

 

[c627627]

Temporarily unusable is not the same as unusable. You get black screens when trying to run other applications, your system slows to a crawl, and is at times temporarily unusable.



If any of this happens as described, then it's a bug. It doesn't matter if we call it a "memory leak" or even if it is a memory leak or something else, this cannot be by design.

None of this happens on the same system if you boot into another Microsoft operating system if you have a multiboot.

 

[SpoonMaN]

i guess i dont see it as a bug
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1508/hardcorechkdsk.jpg
it really is acting like it is caching the files as far as it can in ram and than moves to the swap file when it fills ram.

after i took that pic i also opened excel and word, neither caused a "black screen". i get to see more win7 bugs happen than any person should and quite frankly this just not strike me as being all that important.

 

[c627627]

We're discussing if it exists. We agree it's not a show stopper.

I didn't use DOS, I am able to replicate it every time like so (and so are others):

I simply right clicked on an external drive > Properties > Tools > Check Now and CHECK both options. The operation was eating up all my RAM. Trying to open up other folders on the computer resulted in a black screen.

 

[SpoonMaN]

HA! there we go, just when im about to compare this to an R.O.U.S. it jumps out at me when im closing the 12 apps i opened (8 office apps, VB, VC#, photoshop and dreamweaver) while running it this time. now first hand i see what you are talking about. i dont work till sunday but this will get marked down as to get debugged (windows kernel debugging ftw)

it seems the more ram you have in yur system the harder it is for this to happen.

 

[c627627]

Yes. It is reproducible by everyone, it's bug - it's not "by design."

 

[SpoonMaN]

huge issue with the way "chkdsk" is interacting with explorer.exe, when run from the cmd prompt chkdsk behaves in a way i would almost consider normal. but when run from the gui it over fills the most important process in the whole OS (this is the reason why the slugishness is happening) and does not release the ram that was used when finshed.

 

[c627627]

I seem to recall reputable sources saying they could not replicate the problem, we clearly see that it can be, so why the cover up? .

 

[watchthisspace]

It's not a bug

"The memory usage is intended to speed up checking the disk for damage and errors, but, Sinofsky said, memory usage was not intended to be "unbounded."

He said the command is intended to leave 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."

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/1697...ries_to_calm_fears_of_win_7_critical_bug.html

 

[c627627]

I'm actually looking for someone who'll help me understand. Not going into semantics now, but my claim is that if you have a (large) external drive, then you can't check it for errors and use Windows 7 (to speak of) at the same time. Does that make sense?

[The very same system can run anything you want as fast as it can under Windows XP and even Vista if it's doing the same thing.]


Now I ask you, is it really "by design" not to be able to use your system (and by being able to use it, I mean doing anything you want as fast as you want just like you can if it were XP or Vista checking your external drive at the time.)

 

[Hardin]

I always just schedule a disk check and let them run overnight.

 

[jivetrky]

huge issue with the way "chkdsk" is interacting with explorer.exe, when run from the cmd prompt chkdsk behaves in a way i would almost consider normal. but when run from the gui it over fills the most important process in the whole OS (this is the reason why the slugishness is happening) and does not release the ram that was used when finshed.

I saw this same behavior, but it did release the RAM about 10-ish minutes later