Windows 7 Bug May Delay Launch?

A massive memory leak involving chkdsk.exe may delay the product launch of Windows 7, according to an InfoWorld report.

According to sources, the RTM build 7600.16385 of Windows 7 has a memory leak that is triggered when chkdsk is run with the /r option against a secondary drive.

The problem is found in both 32bit and 64bit versions of the OS and causes the executable's memory consumption to rise rapidly until all memory is used and either the system grinds to crawl or a blue screen death is generated.


I also verified that the problem exists with the integrated disk check utility in Windows Explorer. When you use this function, explorer.exe starts consuming RAM like it's going out of style, pushing my test system to 98 percent memory utilization in just a few seconds. Worse still, explorer.exe failed to release the RAM when I canceled the disk check and grew even more despite the fact that the check was now deliberately aborted. My only recourse was to either reboot the system or try to manually kill and restart explorer.exe.

According to some sources, Microsoft is saying that the problem is chip set driver issue and that users should update their PCs; however, InfoWorld says in testing that they used the very latest drivers and the bug was still present.

Windows 7 is available for pre-order now and will ship October 22nd:
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
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Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
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Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
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