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RCW Reference Counting Rules != COM Reference Counting Rules

Avoiding COM object leaks in managed applications that make use of COM Interop can be a daunting task. While diligent tracking of COM object references and appropriate usage of Marshal.ReleaseComObject usually works fine, COM Interop is always good for surprises. Recently having been tracking down a COM object leak in a COM/.Net-Interop-centric application, I noticed that the CLR did not quite manage the reference count on my COM object as I expected it to do – more precisely, it incremented the referece count of a COM object when it was passed (from COM) as a method parameter to a callback implemented in . Continue »

Effective Leak Detection with the Debug CRT and Application Verifier

Programming memory leaks in C or C++ is easy. Even careful programming often cannot avoid the little mistakes that finally end up in your program having a memory leak. Thankfully, however, there are plenty of helpful tools that assist in finding leaks as early as possible. One especially helpful tool for leak detection is the debug CRT. Although the leak detection facilities provided by the debug CRT are not as far-reaching as those of, say, UMDH, using the debug CRT is probably the most friction-less way of identifying leaks. Continue »