BUG REPORT - 16-bit installers crippled by gcasServ.exe

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aunty Dan
  • Start date Start date
A

Aunty Dan

This bug was found on Windows XP SP2 Pro, no other platforms have been
tested.

If MS AS beta is installed and running the gcasServ.exe background
monitoring service attempts to run setup programs that using old 16-bit
installers would fail. On one system tested with no other running
applications there were no specific error messages, the symptoms were that
the installer would start running, but progress would be very slow, and then
eventually just disappear. On another XP Sp2 system with several running
applications the following error was given:

Application: ISSET_SE
The Win 16 subsystem has insufficient resources to continue running.

The installation applications tested that caused this were Adobe Premiere
v6.0 and the 3DS Max v4.2 SP1. I tested and confirmed the same issue on 3
different XP SP2 workstations running MS AS beta with these programs.

As soon the as gcasServ.exe was removed from startup such installers would
be fine. Booting to Safe Mode also resolved the issue. (As all Startup
programs would be removed of course.)
 
Thanks for the clear report--this should be possible to repro, if we're
lucky.

How to you see resource usage/performance issues in general on the machine
which experienced this symptom? I'm just wondering whether this is a
further issue on a machine in which Microsoft Antispyware is already causing
a performance issue--or whether it is a separate issue.
 
The machine that reported the "Insufficient resources" error was heavily
loaded (Running Outlook, Word, Excel, Firefox, IE, Outlook Express, WMP, P4
2.0Ghz with 1GB RAM) Unfortunately that was my main workstation and I have
not had a chance to reboot it to see if the same error is issued with
nothing running.

The other machines, one which was a clean XP install, and the other which
only had a few apps running, gave no error message at all. On both systems
the installer just died in the background without adversely affected normal
system performance. Usually the % indicator launched when the installer
first ran would show a very slow display from 0 to 30% and then just
disappear from the screen.

Other than this issue I have seen no major performance impact from the MS AS
beta on the systems I have tried it on so far.


Bill Sanderson said:
Thanks for the clear report--this should be possible to repro, if we're
lucky.

How to you see resource usage/performance issues in general on the machine
which experienced this symptom? I'm just wondering whether this is a
further issue on a machine in which Microsoft Antispyware is already
causing a performance issue--or whether it is a separate issue.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks--some folks are definitely seeing performance or resource-usage
issues--high CPU cycles used, for example. Clearly, most people are not
seeing these issues, but understanding what is behind them is important I
suspect.

Aunty Dan said:
The machine that reported the "Insufficient resources" error was heavily
loaded (Running Outlook, Word, Excel, Firefox, IE, Outlook Express, WMP,
P4 2.0Ghz with 1GB RAM) Unfortunately that was my main workstation and I
have not had a chance to reboot it to see if the same error is issued with
nothing running.

The other machines, one which was a clean XP install, and the other which
only had a few apps running, gave no error message at all. On both systems
the installer just died in the background without adversely affected
normal system performance. Usually the % indicator launched when the
installer first ran would show a very slow display from 0 to 30% and then
just disappear from the screen.

Other than this issue I have seen no major performance impact from the MS
AS beta on the systems I have tried it on so far.
Click to expand...
 
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