KB 2707511 update for XP interferes with ntvdm.exe

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After installing this update to Windows XP on both my desktop and laptop a DOS program could not be opened as I received the message “Windows has been forced to shutdown ntvdm.exe. After removing the update everything was back to normal — since this occured on two computers it must be a fault with the update.

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Same problem here, you are not alone.

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Same issue I’ve got 100s of customers that have to run a DOS program to control some hardware and this fails rendering the machines useless!

So I’ve got this:
Faulting application ntvdm.exe, version 5.1.2600.5512, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x0ff82e63.

Jeremy

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KB2707511 does indeed interfere with the NT Virtual Machine While command.com would bring up the DOS screen I discovered yesterday when attempting to use an older DOS based PLC development tool Mitsubishi MEDOC that the NTVDM error message immediately appeared as DOS crashed.

Unlike fuzzychaos above while the faulting application information and version were the same, the faulting module was kernel32.dll, version 5.1.2600.5512 at fault address 0x00012afb. This lead me to suspect the most recent update performed two days ago, before which the NT Virtual Machine worked correctly.

After noting that this particular update dealt with the NT Kernel, I uninstalled KB2707511 and the problem was immediately corrected.

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Turns out my problem is linked to the Turbo Pascal ExecDos command inside the code of the executables that run our software. The command launches another DOS program when executed programmatically. No idea why that would be a problem to protect users from. Not sure that we will be able to implement an alternative solution and for others I guess they are totally out of luck. I hope Microsoft fixes this problem soon based on the problems you can now see by searching on Google for this issue with the NTVDM error

Jeremy

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After further debugging it turns out not to be the DosExec function call but another problem related to creating a named pipe, found here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itproxpsp/thread/295b18be-4b08-4d52-8bca-c269f4999784/?prof=required

Jeremy

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Finally found the solution that worked for me and I think it should be the general solution for this problem here!

KB2732488 fixes the problem for those affected machines. Now working to try it out with more of the software and hardware that wasn’t working.

Relevant links:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itproxpsp/thread/295b18be-4b08-4d52-8bca-c269f4999784/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2732488

Jeremy

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Has this hotfix been added or included in any later updates from MS or does it need to be installed on its own no matter what? I have CPU usage problems namely freezing, in my dos program but I do not get actual error messages. Is there a risk to installing it if it is not specific to my problem.

Thanks

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Finally found the solution that worked for me and I think it should be the general solution for this problem here!

KB2732488 fixes the problem for those affected machines. Now working to try it out with more of the software and hardware that wasn’t working.

EDIT: the KB2732488 hotfix is no longer needed. it’s superseded/replaced by the KB2785487 hotfix, which resolves a recent issue with the MS12-068 KB2724197 security update and the KB2732488 hotfix for XP.
I will obtain & try out the KB2785487 hotfix on my XP computer until a future XP security update contains this fix. at least this time, KB2785487 covers Windows XP & Server 2003, unlike KB2732488 which covered only XP.

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The patch needs to be installed on its own but only if you have the symptoms described in problem statement. I doubt that this patch is going to solve your problem. Instead you might need some software that reduces the keyboard polling (a common issue) to lower the CPU load like the old DOSKBD software for Terminal Services. There was another software program that worked in XP for example but I can’t find it any more or recall its name.

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