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Difficulty: Very hardTroubleshooting Windows Performance and Application Crashes

A Windows 11 workstation performing large data transformations experiences sudden application crashes without generating an error prompt on screen. A technician inspects Event Viewer and observes Event ID 1000 (Application Error) with exception code 0xc0000005 in the Application log. Monitoring system metrics reveals that prior to the crash, the Commit Charge reached 99% of the Commit Limit, and Resource Monitor reported a high frequency of Hard Faults/sec across background processes. Physical RAM utilization remained at 85%. Which of the following is the most appropriate action to resolve the root cause of these application crashes?

  1. Reconfigure the system virtual memory settings to ensure the paging file is enabled and configured for system-managed size on the system drive.Answer
  2. B
    Execute sfc /scannow followed by dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth in an elevated Command Prompt to repair system file corruption.
  3. C
    Run chkdsk C: /r from the Windows Recovery Environment to locate and mark bad disk sectors responsible for hard faults.
  4. D
    Modify the application execution properties to force 32-bit WOW64 emulation mode to bypass 64-bit memory addressing limits.

Answer

Reconfigure the system virtual memory settings to ensure the paging file is enabled and configured for system-managed size on the system drive.
The correct option addresses the root cause of the crash. Commit Charge represents the total amount of virtual memory allocated by all running processes. When Commit Charge reaches the Commit Limit (RAM plus pagefile size), Windows fails further memory allocation requests, causing applications to terminate unexpectedly with access violation errors (code 0xc0000005). Enabling a system-managed paging file ensures the Commit Limit automatically expands to satisfy high memory allocation demands during intensive processing.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze diagnostic indicators from Event Viewer and Resource Monitor metrics.
Event ID 1000 with exception code 0xc0000005 indicates a memory access violation. Commit Charge hitting 99% of Commit Limit alongside high Hard Faults/sec indicates virtual memory (paging file) exhaustion.
Commit Charge represents total virtual memory allocated by all active processes, while Commit Limit is physical RAM plus maximum pagefile size.
2
Evaluate potential underlying causes for Commit Limit exhaustion.
The paging file is either disabled, set to a custom fixed size that is too small, or located on a disk lacking sufficient free space.
If Commit Charge reaches the Commit Limit, Windows refuses memory allocation requests, causing applications to abruptly crash with access violation exceptions.
3
Identify the remediation step that restores virtual memory expandability.
Configuring a system-managed paging file on the main system drive allows Windows to dynamically expand virtual memory allocation as workload demand spikes.
System-managed paging files adaptively grow to accommodate high Commit Charge requirements, preventing 0xc0000005 allocation crashes.

Key Concept

Windows Virtual Memory and Paging File Exhaustion Diagnosis
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Topics

Troubleshooting Windows Performance and Application Crashes

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