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Microsoft denies CHKDSK bug is 'critical show stopper'

6 August 2009 16:23 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 22 comments

Microsoft has come out in defense of the much-anticipated Windows 7 operating system after a number of blogs and other sources flaunted a discovered bug as a potential "show-stopper". Some had reported that a bug with the operating system's CHKDSK utility could delay the planned rollout, which is being watched closely as hopes are high of Windows 7 providing a much needed jab in the arm for the PC industry.

Screenshots of the Windows Task Manager depicting the CHKDSK process eating up several gigabytes of memory (apparently leading to a BSOD in cases) have circulated around the blogosphere, but Microsoft is denying that the bug is in the Windows software. Instead, Microsoft is pointing at a chipset controller issue as the culprit and advising customers to update their chipset drivers to the latest versions providing by the motherboard manufacturer.

Microsoft's Windows division President Steven Sinofsky said that the company has not reproduced the crash or experienced any crashes with CHKDSK in any measurable number. "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 said.

He continued: "Bugs that are so severe as to require immediate patches and attention would have to have no workarounds and would generally be such that a large set of people would run across them in the normal course of using their PC." Sinofsky went on to say that this is not a big issue but that Microsoft will continue to pursue and investigate any issues with Windows 7 if/as they arise.

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Discuss this article!
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 6 August 2009 16:53
This is common place. Before any new OS gets publicly released it will have last minute bugs it will have to iron out. My suggestion would be too wait a few months after it is released and see how it effects the region your in and how effective it is being run there and if you do not hear any major drama's then go ahead and buy it. [ + quote]
beanos66 (Junior Member) 6 August 2009 17:38
!people use chkdsk ? [ + quote]
solamf30 (Junior Member) 6 August 2009 19:47
No. MS uses chkdsk. I've had it do this after a BSOD a time or two which I've always canceled but it seems determined to do. Other than that love Win 7 [ + quote]
DXR88 (Senior Member) 6 August 2009 20:39
it wouldn't be windows if it was perfect. [ + quote]
jony218 (Senior Member) 6 August 2009 22:43
I demand perfection in my OS. Those of you with lesser standards can upgrade to windows 7, I'll stick with XP for another 6 months to a year. [ + quote]
nintenut (Senior Member) 6 August 2009 22:54
*Originally posted by jony218:* I demand perfection in my OS. Those of you with lesser standards can upgrade to windows 7, I'll stick with XP for another 6 months to a year. Was the second sentence meant to clash with the first? Not knocking XP of course, but it has it's flaws. [ + quote]
jemaric (Junior Member) 6 August 2009 23:00
flash drives need to be cleaned up because a lot of read & write errors are created on the drive when you delete & add stuff on it [ + quote]
bobiroc (Member) 7 August 2009 0:49
*Originally posted by jony218:* I demand perfection in my OS. Those of you with lesser standards can upgrade to windows 7, I'll stick with XP for another 6 months to a year. Well then you better not use any software because there is no "perfect" software or operating system out there. And for the record this is just FUD anyway. Maybe it happened on a few machines and maybe it could be a potential problem but what I have been reading about it one must go through some steps to make it happen because Windows 7 just like Vista and XP usually will want to run a full checkdsk on the hard drives on next reboot and it will prompt you as the advised method. Just for the sake of argument I tried this on the 4 computers I am running Windows 7 on and while the memory usage was high the system did not crash, BSOD and was still usable provided I wasn't trying to force it on the system drive which always prompted to run on next reboot. I really do not think this is as big of a deal as they are trying to make it out to be. [ + quote]
KillerBug (Senior Member) 7 August 2009 0:53
You can always compile a dummy executable if you do have the problem...this isn't a big deal since the utility is to complicated for a normal user, and too basic for a power user. Just kill it any all is well. [ + quote]
scorpNZ (Senior Member) 7 August 2009 1:15
*Originally posted by jony218:* I demand perfection in my OS. Those of you with lesser standards can upgrade to windows 7, I'll stick with XP for another 6 months to a year. You should'a downloaded the beta & giv'n it a whirl,it doesn't expire till next year,it's a real slick version of xp,i'm totally luv'n it.You may still be able to sign up & get it,i even ran it on the machine below as a vpc before installing it on the slave drive..lol.. Ran real swift once it was installed,haven't got around to putting object desktop on there yet that'll really make it look sweet & man i wish xp's start menu was like this presario s5020an 2003 2.0ghz 32bit 1 gig ram 256 7600gs agp graph card 4x 2x 500gb hdd's [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 7 August 2009 1:19
varnull (Inactive) 7 August 2009 1:17
broken by design.. sigh how long have M$ used this ancient dos hangover? .. still they can't get it to work properly.. pathetic! Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. I would rather you hate me for who I am than love me for what I am not. �It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.� - Bruce Schneier [ + quote]
bobiroc (Member) 7 August 2009 9:07
*Originally posted by varnull:* broken by design.. sigh how long have M$ used this ancient dos hangover? .. still they can't get it to work properly.. pathetic! What are you talking about. There have been many articles on this all over the internet and so far I have not read one where people have been able to re-create the alleged bug. Who is to say that the few people that experienced the BSOD didn't have some underlying problem with their computer. Did you ever think that maybe the Hard Drive they were running this full checkdsk on could be degraded in some way and while Windows was scanning it hit a bad section of the drive and BAM BSOD. Maybe they have bad Memory or something...ever think of that? Or do you feel that is also microsoft's problem? Oh and the command prompt in Windows is not DOS. It is just a command prompt to run DOS like commands in a window that looks like DOS. Many GUI based OSes have a similar feature to run command line and scripts. [ + quote]
engage16 (Member) 7 August 2009 11:53
Just ignore Varnull, she's a Linux fangirl... :) The CHKDSK bug is when your running it on a NONSYSTEM Drive... Like if your Windows installation is on Drive C: and your were scanning drive D:... It is easily recreatible, but not life threatening so to speak... It effects users with 2gb or less of RAM, as the memory leak eats up around 2gb and hence crashing those machines. If you have 4gb of RAM, while you will notice a performance hit, it shouldn't BSOD your computer... [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 7 August 2009 13:27
*Originally posted by engage16:* Just ignore Varnull, she's a Linux fangirl... :) And thats why we luff hur =^^= [ + quote]
DXR88 (Senior Member) 7 August 2009 14:03
*Quote:* *Originally posted by engage16:* Just ignore Varnull, she's a Linux fangirl... :) And thats why we luff hur =^^= Ew luff [ + quote]
matt87622 (Junior Member) 7 August 2009 14:10
It doesn't matter because I am not going to use windows 7 anyway. In all probability the business world wont either. [ + quote]
DXR88 (Senior Member) 7 August 2009 14:14
Scandisk was 10x better than checkdisk well ever be [ + quote]
bobiroc (Member) 7 August 2009 14:59
*Originally posted by matt87622:* It doesn't matter because I am not going to use windows 7 anyway. In all probability the business world wont either. I think you are wrong about that. I work in the education world and I know 6 K-12 School districts in my area that are going to Windows 7 at least on some scale within the next year, my district being one of them. Initially it will be a mixed environment of Windows 7 and XP but as our older machines that will not be licensed for Windows 7 phase out we will move more towards Windows 7. [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 7 August 2009 19:32
*Quote:* *Quote:* *Originally posted by engage16:* Just ignore Varnull, she's a Linux fangirl... :) And thats why we luff hur =^^= Ew luff We luff uuu too DXR88 pounce cuddles:P [ + quote]
DXR88 (Senior Member) 7 August 2009 20:13
*Quote:* *Quote:* *Quote:* *Originally posted by engage16:* Just ignore Varnull, she's a Linux fangirl... :) And thats why we luff hur =^^= Ew luff We luff uuu too DXR88 pounce cuddles:P Get it off. Get it off gahhh!! On noes my face is meltings [ + quote]
scorpNZ (Senior Member) 7 August 2009 23:43
Enters thread then thinks to self it's get'n too freaky in here,backs away slowly :p [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 8 August 2009 2:18
*Originally posted by scorpNZ:* Enters thread then thinks to self it's get'n too freaky in here,backs away slowly :p COME!! come join the luff friend!! clings to your leg [ + quote]