Program May Access Violate Due to Heap Corruption Caused by Ntdll.dll (305227)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP2
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP2
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP2

This article was previously published under Q305227

SYMPTOMS

An program may access violate or fail and create a Dr. Watson because of heap corruption. Heap corruption occurs when the heap headers are overwritten or improperly set. The Drwtsn32.log will show that the failure occurred in system functions such as ntdll!RtlpCoalesceFreeBlocks, ntdll!RtlpExtendHeap, and ntdll!RtlAllocateHeap.

In some circumstances, if the corruption occurs during startup, you may start your computer and the monitor may display a blank white screen and the computer may stop responding.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur because of a race condition in the operating system heap functions. Under this scenario, the race condition corrupts the heap metadata.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

   Date         Time   Version        Size     File name
   -----------------------------------------------------
   07-Aug-2001  14:30  5.0.2195.4082  476,432  Ntdll.dll

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 3.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about how to obtain a hotfix for Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

265173 The Datacenter Program and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Product

For additional information about how to install multiple hotfixes with a single reboot, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

296861 Use QChain.exe to Install Multiple Hotfixes with One Reboot

For additional information about how to install Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 hotfixes at the same time, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

249149 Installing Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Hotfixes

Modification Type:	Minor	Last Reviewed:	9/26/2005
Keywords:	kbHotfixServer kbQFE kbbug kbfix kbOSWin2000fix kbWin2000PreSP3Fix kbWin2000sp3fix KB305227