FAQ and Knowledge Base

When running a large number of profiles concurrently in VVEngine, the following errors may appear:

• Some of the profiles may stop with “out-of-memory” or "Windows heap depletion" errors.
• Some of the profiles complete, however without copying any files (this may happen only in versions before 2.5 build 2503).
• Other profiles complete properly.

CAUSE

This behaviour may occur if the Windows desktop heap (when VVEngine is running as a standard program) or the non-interactive heap (when VVEngine is running as a Windows Service)  in the WIN32 subsystem is depleted.
Windows Heap depletion can happen because other programs / services in addition to VVEngine may be using the memory allocated in the Windows Heap.

SOLUTION

a) Limit the amount of profiles that are running concurrently by scheduling them to run at different times.

or

b) Increase the Windows desktop heap size:

Important: This section contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/

1.Run Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2.From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, go to the following key: \System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems
3.Select the Windows value.
4.From the Edit menu, choose String.
5.Increase the SharedSection parameter:
SharedSection uses the following format to specify the system and desktop heaps:
SharedSection=xxxx,yyyy,zzzz
For 32-bit operating systems, increase the yyyy value to "12288";
Increase the zzzz value to "1024".
For 64-bit operating systems, increase the yyyy value to "20480";
Increase the zzzz value to "1024".
6. Restart the computer.

Note: Microsoft also provides a tool that can do the above steps automatically. The tool can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962 or at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947246 for Windows Vista, 7, 2008.

References:

- "Out of Memory" error message appears when you have a large number of programs running: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962

- You may receive an "Out of Memory" error message because of the desktop heap limitation in Windows Vista or in Windows 7: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947246

- Increasing the Desktop Application Heap: http://ss64.com/nt/syntax-desktopheap.html

- Desktop Heap Overview: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2007/01/04/desktop-heap-overview.aspx

- Desktop Heap Overview - Part 2: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2007/07/05/desktop-heap-part-2.aspx

- Sessions, Desktops and Windows Stations: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/07/24/sessions-desktops-and-windows-stations.aspx

- Services, Desktops, and Window Stations: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171890