#Sherlock: Give us a clue
6 messages in this thread
General Protection Faults occur in environments that switch the CPU into
protected mode. Windows does this, as do many DOS-extender technologies such
as Phar Lap. In protected mode, a program can only use memory that it owns.
That's where the "protected" comes from — the memory pool is protected from
ill-behaving programs that try to get at memory addresses that haven't signed
up for. A GPF occurs when a request is made for memory a program doesn't own.
Ron
Ron,
Now that's probably the clearest explanation I've read of "protected" mode.
I knew that GPFs were related to "off-limits" memory, but had no real idea of
how they related to Windows. Obviously, I need to do more reading, but it
helps a lot to have the field narrowed. Thanks a lot.
Lynne
Interesting. I knew of a lot of error messages but never saw a GPF message
outside of Windows….
When I was working with OS/2 before there was a thing called Program manager,
we'd get them all the time at the company I worked for. I also did a lot of
debugging work on a major software package we all know and hate using a DOS
extender, and therefor also using protected mode. GPFs are a great way to
uncover bugs that otherwise won't show up until the user gets the product. <g>
I believe there is a product out that deliberately runs your software under
protected mode so it can find memory walk-overs.
Ron
Well, the original OS/2 code was MicroSoft's, so you'd expect much the same
error codes there.
I have a certain grudging admiration for MicroSoft. Remember how they
promised no more UAEs if you went from WIN30 to WIN31? And they kept their
word. They renamed them….
Yeah, I love it. I actually do have a gruding admiration for Microsoft. They
may be a lot of things, but some good software does come out of there. Now if
it only started there… <vicious evil grin>
Ron