Application Access Violation or Hang After Applying SP4

After applying Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 (SP4) or Windows 2000, you encounter lockups or access violation (Dr. Watson) errors in an application that appeared to be working fine previously.

NOTE: You might encounter other symptoms or errors in an application that relate to the below-mentioned cause.

The application in question is errantly trying to access a block of memory that it had previously freed or deallocated. With Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and earlier, such a reallocation is more likely to succeed, since the same memory location is more likely to still be available for reallocation. SP4 and later, however, introduces a change in the heap manager allocation patterns that can result in a failure of such a reallocation request. For more information on this change, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To determine if the above-mentioned change is exposing a problem in the application in question, proceed with the following steps. If these steps result in the application generating fewer or no more such errors, contact the vendor of the application to inquire about an updated version of the application that resolves this problem.

NOTE: There are other conditions that can cause such errors or hangs that are not related to this change introduced in SP4 and Windows 2000. If the following workaround does not correct the problem, query on the error or condition you are encountering and the application name in the Microsoft Knowledge Base and/or check with your application vendor for more information on any other known problems.

1. Start Registry Editor (regedt32.exe) and navigate to the following registry path:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
2. With the Image File Execution Options key selected, click Add Key from the Edit menu to create a new key using the name of the executable file that starts the process that is encountering the above-noted problem. An example Key Name entry is "Application.exe". You can leave the Class field blank. This Key Name entry should not include a path, only the name of the executable file itself. Refer to the already-existing Game.exe entry in this location of the registry as an example.
3. Select the new key you created in step 2 above and click Add Value from the Edit menu to create the Value Name: DisableHeapLookaside and Data Type: REG_SZ. Click OK and then enter 1 in the String field.
   
   Summary for the above entries:
   Key Name: application.exe
   Class:
   
   Value Name: DisableHeapLookaside
   Data Type: REG_SZ
   String: 1
4. It is not usually necessary to restart the system to see the results. You can usually simply restart the application because this registry value is inspected during each process initialization. If the executable is a service, however, restarting the computer may be necessary to cause the executable to be properly restarted.

NOTE: This registry setting only affects the process or processes that you specify.