Advanced Windows Debugging

Chapter 9. Resource Leaks

Without a doubt, resource leaks are one of the main sources of problems that can lead to software instability. One “small” resource leak is all it takes for large corporations to have to restart critical applications and services (and in worst-case scenarios, the entire system) and in the process lose thousands, or sometimes hundreds of thousands, of dollars. Software houses cannot afford to ignore issues such as memory leaks. Serious time and effort has to be scheduled to deal with these problems when they surface during testing. Admittedly, some resource leaks are harder to track down than others, but no questions should be asked concerning whether they should be fixed. Armed with the right thought process, coupled ...