Lately I see tons of 0xc0000142 errors on Vista boxes across all projects.

I think it's about time to come up with a solution for that, many are afraid to edit the registry in order to fix that bug on Vista side, so I have a proposal :

Treat especially this error just like "process exited with zero but no finished file" (or so), i.e. just give it another try.

The easiest way to do that would be, check for 0xc0000142, issue a message but then replace it with 0, so it runs into the same routine as the one with "no finished file".


It would need to be tested of course, wether it can restart on the last checkpoint after such a problem or not - but I think it is worth it, as too many results go down the drain caused by this stupid Vista bug.


p.s.: Just to make it clear, it is definitely not a bug in BOINC, lots of other programs have their trouble with this Vista bug as well.

I don't use Vista (not even XP, if I can avoid it).

I have seen those errors mostly on 5.10.28 and 5.10.30, but now I checked the release notes (should have done that before posting, sorry) and Rom seems to have fixed it lately :

Rom 5 Nov 2007
- CC: Treat the return code 0xC0000142 as though it is a temporary
error. 0xC0000142 means STATUS_DLL_INIT_FAILED which can happen
when an application attempts to create a new process while the OS
is shutting down, and when the desktop heap is fully utilized.

This will keep an app from erroring out during Vista's shutdown
sequence. Only a reboot can fix the desktop heap.

So I guess there is hope :-)

5.10.30 had the code already on board that would restart the tasks on this error. All previous versions of BOINC will abort the tasks.

And no need to edit the registry, it's not the Vista fast shutdown that causes this. On the contrary even as it can happen on Windows 2000 and XP as well.
You get the error when you return after shutting down/rebooting the PC while it was busy starting a new task. Or in Windows terms: "an application attempts to create a new process while the OS is shutting down, and when the desktop heap is fully utilized."

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http://qah.uni-muenster.de/forum_thread.php?id=663 has been one of the threads where it has been reported for 5.10.30 but it seems that upgrading to 5.10.35 fixed the problem in this case, the box returned only successful results since then.

(um ... sorry ... what does "going bonkers" mean?)

I'm usually running Win2k but that doesn't mean that I do not notice the problems that others have :-)

Thinking about quad core - then I will be forced to say "bye" to Win2k :´(

(um ... sorry ... what does "going bonkers" mean?)

Going crazy. Out of your mind. Losing your marbles.

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The acronym 'BOINC' has in the past very unkindly been compared with 'bonkers'.

Bionic bonkers?

Would sure be a funny name for a team *g