A Program That Is Running at Real Time Can Lock Windows XP If Themes Are Enabled (317159)

SYMPTOMS

If you have a program that runs at real-time priority, if you click one of the caption bar buttons (for example, Minimize, Maximize, or Close), Windows XP stops responding (hangs).

CAUSE

This problem occurs when the process runs at REALTIME_PRIORITY_CLASS and the thread that owns the program window runs at THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL. As a result, the caption button hit-testing routine enters a tight loop and Windows XP stops responding.

RESOLUTION

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

322389 How to Obtain the Latest Windows XP Service Pack

The English version of this fix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date         Time   Version      Size     File name
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   21-Feb-2002  11:28  6.0.2600.29  190,464  Uxtheme.dll

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem if your program must run at real time, use one of the following methods:

Disable themes across the computer by turning off the Themes service.
Disable themes in the affected programs by calling SetThemeAppProperties.

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 XP Service Pack 1.