PRB: sndPlaySound with SND_MEMORY and SND_ASYNC Flags Hangs (77697)

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As it plays the sound, Windows must be able to access the memory used to store the wave file. If this memory is deleted during playback, Windows will hang because the memory is no longer valid. The memory can be deleted if an application starts to play a sound and exits. All memory allocated by an application is freed upon exit.

To terminate the playback of a asynchronous wave initiated by sndPlaySound(), call sndPlaySound() with the lpszSoundName parameter set to NULL. This should be done only when an application is playing an asynchronous sound from memory and it is necessary to stop playing the sound. For example, this should be done if the application is playing a sound from memory and the user closes the application.

Note: The memory allocated for the wave file must be shared. All shared memory allocated in a DLL (dynamic-link library) is owned by the DLL. Other memory allocated in a DLL is owned by the application that calls the DLL. When the DLL is freed, all shared memory allocated by the DLL is freed. Therefore, if the DLL that allocates the memory to hold the wave is freed before sndPlaySound is complete, Windows will hang.