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Pastimes : Triffin's Market Diary -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Triffin who wrote (184)	10/2/2001 1:56:35 PM
From: Triffin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 869

BC: MEMORY EATER Monday July 23, 2001 1:46 pm Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: Ziff Davis Internet ExtremeTech Readers Uncover a Major Flaw in Microsoft's Windows ME Operating System Memory Leak Could Potentially Put Millions of Computers at Risk of Frequent Crashes; Microsoft Support Confirms They Are Investigating the Problem NEW YORK, July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- ExtremeTech (http://www.extremetech.com), Ziff Davis Internet's site for hardcore technologists, reported today that its readers have uncovered a significant flaw in Windows Millennium Edition (Windows ME), the consumer version of Microsoft's flagship operating system. The flaw -- a memory leak -- could put millions of users at risk of frequent crashes. The full story can be found online in the site's news section at extremetech.com. Ziff Davis Internet is a subsidiary of Ziff Davis Media Inc. According to the report, Microsoft support has confirmed that the problem exists and that they are currently researching a solution. The memory leak occurs when users open large programs or files in Windows ME and then later close them. By design Windows is supposed to ``recover'' the amount of free memory available to the system for other tasks. However, due to this leak, Windows ME never actually manages its free memory properly, thereby leaving a system unstable and highly vulnerable to freezes, crashes and ``blue screens of death.'' The problem does not affect any other version of the operating system. The Windows ME flaw first surfaced earlier this week when ExtremeTech reader Matt Vlasaty, a Chicago-based electrical engineer, brought the issue to the forefront on the site's discussion boards. When others on the boards voiced similar complaints, Vlasaty and ExtremeTech's editors worked together to reproduce the leak on a clean system, thereby confirming the problem. ExtremeTech was built from the ground up expressly for ``hardcore techies'' who have an insatiable appetite for the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts of technology. The site, which targets IT professionals and computer enthusiasts, focuses on the technologies that power products, providing this early adopter audience with technical detail that goes well beyond traditional tech coverage.