cygcheck triggers Wow6432Node infinite loop on Windows Server 2008

GJ Hagenaars gj@hagenaars.com
Wed Jun 24 18:33:00 GMT 2009


Hi there,

On a Windows Server 2008, running cronbug from the (bash) command line 
results in an ever increasing cronbug.txt file because cygcheck walks 
the registry and gets into an infinite loop.

It will repeatedly find these entries, deeper and deeper in the registry:
Cygnus Solutions
Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin
Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin\mounts v2
Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin\mounts v2\/
Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin\mounts v2\/usr/bin
Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin\mounts v2\/usr/lib
Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin\Program Options

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Cygnus Solutions
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node\Cygnus Solutions
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node\Cygnus 
Solutions
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node\Wow6432Node\Cygnus 
Solutions


Wow6432Node is Windows-on-windows, and allows registry entries for 32 
bit applications to be stored along side registry entries for 64 bit 
applications of the same name (allowing for different entries for 64 bit 
and 32 bit apps).  The infinite loop behaviour is known and "fixed" by 
Microsoft by making the registry key HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node hidden 
from RegEnumKeyEx in the 32 bit hive.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724072(VS.85).aspx 
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724072%28VS.85%29.aspx>

Many registry cleaners are (still) struggling with this, as are registry 
backup utilities, and also, it appears, cygcheck.

--GJ--

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple



More information about the Cygwin mailing list