LKBEN10860: An application on your terminal server get killed by the windows operating system.

Symptom

You might have a problem with the desktop heap size limit in windows.

Cause

none

Solution

The following Registry key can be used to set the value higher. It will set the Windows key to the text:

%SystemRoot%\system32\csrss.exe ObjectDirectory=\Windows SharedSection=1024,8192,512 Windows=On SubSystemType=Windows ServerDll=basesrv,1 ServerDll=winsrv:UserServerDllInitialization,3 ServerDll=winsrv:ConServerDllInitialization,2 ProfileControl=Off MaxRequestThreads=16

This can be done with the registry file below which is hard to read because it is a REG_EXPAND_SZ.

In fact, it just changes the secand value of SharedSection to 8192. The default is 3072 and this might be to small for certain applications. In our case we could start the application 7 Times on a terminal server. Debug traces would always lead to a stack overflow which was very misleading! After this setting we had no more problems with the system.

The desktop heap size can be made visible with the dheapmon tools.

On the terminal server you need to view your session 0 and your local session! For more information on dheapmon, search on the word in the windows knowledgebase. The output looks like this for session 0:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\kktools>dheapmon.exe
Desktop Heap Information Monitor Tool (Version 8.1.2925.0)
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------
  Session ID:    0 Total Desktop: (  5824 KB -    8 desktops)

  WinStation\Desktop            Heap Size(KB)    Used Rate(%)
-------------------------------------------------------------
  WinSta0\Default                    3072             15.3
  WinSta0\Disconnect                   64              4.5
  WinSta0\Winlogon                    128              9.2
  Service-0x0-3e7$\Default            512             27.5
  Service-0x0-3e4$\Default            512              6.8
  Service-0x0-3e5$\Default            512              6.8
  SAWinSta\SADesktop                  512              0.5
  Service-0x0-fea2$\Default           512              1.1
-------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems]
"Windows"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\
  74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,63,\
  00,73,00,72,00,73,00,73,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,4f,00,62,00,6a,00,\
  65,00,63,00,74,00,44,00,69,00,72,00,65,00,63,00,74,00,6f,00,72,00,79,00,3d,\
  00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,53,00,68,00,61,00,\
  72,00,65,00,64,00,53,00,65,00,63,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,3d,00,31,00,30,\
  00,32,00,34,00,2c,00,38,00,31,00,39,00,32,00,2c,00,35,00,31,00,32,00,20,00,\
  57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,3d,00,4f,00,6e,00,20,00,53,00,75,\
  00,62,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,54,00,79,00,70,00,65,00,3d,00,\
  57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,\
  00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,3d,00,62,00,61,00,73,00,65,00,73,00,72,00,76,00,\
  2c,00,31,00,20,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,3d,\
  00,77,00,69,00,6e,00,73,00,72,00,76,00,3a,00,55,00,73,00,65,00,72,00,53,00,\
  65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,49,00,6e,00,69,00,74,00,69,\
  00,61,00,6c,00,69,00,7a,00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,2c,00,33,00,20,00,\
  53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,3d,00,77,00,69,00,6e,\
  00,73,00,72,00,76,00,3a,00,43,00,6f,00,6e,00,53,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,\
  72,00,44,00,6c,00,6c,00,49,00,6e,00,69,00,74,00,69,00,61,00,6c,00,69,00,7a,\
  00,61,00,74,00,69,00,6f,00,6e,00,2c,00,32,00,20,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,66,00,\
  69,00,6c,00,65,00,43,00,6f,00,6e,00,74,00,72,00,6f,00,6c,00,3d,00,4f,00,66,\
  00,66,00,20,00,4d,00,61,00,78,00,52,00,65,00,71,00,75,00,65,00,73,00,74,00,\
  54,00,68,00,72,00,65,00,61,00,64,00,73,00,3d,00,31,00,36,00,00,00

Please note that this setting does help for bad software. It will help when your Desktop Heap Size has reached its limit.

About the Author

Wim Peeters is electronics engineer with an additional master in IT and over 30 years of experience including time spent in support, development, consulting, training and database administration. Wim has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5. He has developed in C/C++, Java and C# on Windows and Linux in different European countries and different European languages. He writes knowledge base articles to solve IT problems and publishes them on the Lubby Knowledge Platform where he is one of the most important contributors and the main developer.

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