Part eight: Regedit can fix Symantec problem

By Fred Langa In this, my eighth and final column on my Housecalls across the continent, we see how editing the Registry resolves a Symantec networking problem. Symantec’s Norton Antivirus requires a larger IRPStackSize than the default value in order to handle data in a peer-to-peer network.

• How to use some free, powerful tools to declutter a PC and speed boot times;
  
• How to resolve an address conflict on a small network;
  
• How to test the basic security of an Internet connection;
  
• How to reduce the size of areas where enormous numbers of junk files can quietly accumulate;
  
• How some very popular software can ruin the performance of some PCs;
  
• How to reduce fan noise in a PC; and
  
• How to get Scheduled Tasks to run properly if you don’t have the normally-required login password.
  

When we left off last week, we were trying to solve a strange error message I’d never seen before: “Not enough server storage is available to process this command.” Franz, the winner of one of my four Housecalls, would see this message when trying to connect to his wife’s PC via his peer-to-peer home network. His network didn’t have a central server, and Franz’s machine (the closest thing to a server in the network) had abundant RAM and disk space. What was going on?

The solution is in an obscure parameter known as IRPStackSize. IRP stands for Input/Output Request Packet. This packet contains specially formatted data that device drivers use to communicate with each other deep within Windows’ core, or kernel. A “stack” in this context is a kind of scratchpad memory used by the operating system. Thus IRPStackSize determines how much scratchpad memory is set aside to handle IRPs.

How Symantec conflicts with Windows’ stack size

In small networks, you normally don’t have to worry about IRPs. The default IRPStackSize is 15, and that’s plenty of space for typical operations. But some software can use up the available space in the stack. When one too many IRPs come in, whatever input/output operation was going on screeches to a halt and you get the error message “Not enough server storage is available to process this command” or “Not enough memory to complete transaction.”

Symantec tools seem to be the worst offenders for causing this error. Microsoft specifically fingers Symantec’s Norton Antivirus in Knowledge Base article 177078, which refers specifically to IRP stack space running out. The Symantec site also contains an article covering the error. Both Microsoft and Symantec focus on Norton Antivirus, but a general Web search reveals that many users also associate this error with Symantec’s Norton Ghost.

Related posts:

1. Symantec Norton 360: first impressions
2. Part four: WU, Symantec suite can slow PCs
3. Symantec “Rootkit”
4. Security alert for Symantec and Raptor firewalls
5. Deciphering “Exit Codes”