Way off topic

Sorry guy’s (Pavel ;)) . I know this isn’t an A-V question, but does anyone know what a “Special Pool” means??

I’ve had a blue screen which suggested enableing special pool to catch an offending driver before it gets to a crash.

Anyone know how to enable this?

Thanks for any info and sorry if I out of order for posting :-[

Never heard of it, but a google search on “Special pool” and crash reveals this microsoft article. Maybe it is helpfull: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q192/4/86.asp&NoWebContent=1

Peter

Actually not off-topic at all…

Special pool used to be quite a useful debugging aid in the times of Windows NT 3.x-4.x and early days of Win2K. The idea behind it was very simple: to tag each allocated memory block by an identifier so that if a crash occurs, the system may be able to identify who’s block it (roughly) is (normally, memory blocks are anonymous).

For more info, please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=188831 . This article also contains instructions on how to turn this feature on.

With the arrival of Win2K, and mainly XP, MS actually gave us a much more powerful weapon to fight device driver failures - the Driver Verifier. To run this tool, type

verifier

to the Run box, and follow the on-screen instructions. While this tool is mainly aimed to developers it can also provide some help to the rest of the world.

Be warned, though – whenever the Driver Verifier finds something suspicious, it invokes a blue screen! Really. ::slight_smile:

The bottom line is, don’t do this unless you know what you’re doing. :slight_smile:
(so do I understand it correctly that your new hardware has not yet arrived… :o)

Cheers,
Vlk

Thanks VERY much Peter and Vlk,

That’s really interesting stuff (to me anyway :wink: ) and I appreciate the responses.

I’ll check out the links and no doubt Vlk my brain will tell me not to try it, but my curiosity … :-\ :wink: is another thing :wink:

I’m SOooo glad you asked about the new machine Vlk :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: how many guesses do you want >:( :wink:

Just thought I’d pop back and say thanks once again fellas

You’ve managed to do what Pavel has been trying to do for weeks… keep me off the forums for a few days… (while I digest all this info) <still joking Pavel :)> .

Which great Antartic explorer said… “I might be gone for some time” :wink: :frowning:

Hi guy’s,

Finally ploughed through it all and surprisingly understood most of it in the end… I think the alcohol helped 8) .

I can also confirm your ‘warning’ Vlk. I couldn’t resist trying it and I didn’t have to wait for a blue screen… it repeatedly ‘booted’ into one. By this time I was fed up and drunk and couldn’t be bothered to find out what a wps??nt driver was. :-[

Seriously, thanks for the info guy’s.

Walker.

Vlk,

Just as a passing comment 8) … what does ashMon2.sys do. Verifier didn’t seem to like that and when microsoft got hold of the mini-d the reply was… “This error is currently being researched”. Obviously I don’t think they have picked up loads of avast errors and it’s just a general reply, but wondering what the file does?.

Walker.

Well, aswMon2.sys is the core of the Standard Shield – this is where it’s implemented, actually.

Send me the m-dumps, I’ll try to have a look at them…

The Verifier does like aswMon2.sys on our machines, to be frank… :-\

No problem… I’m always assuming it is this machine :‘( :’( :cry: