In various unrelated VSM system setups, critical malbehaviours, including crashes, were noticed, which could be linked to the "Fault Tolerant Heap" (FTH) Subsystem in Microsoft Windows® Server®. With FTH as the very likely cause for these faults, we strongly recommend to deactive this system in order to stabilize vsmStudio and vsmGadgetserver installs.

To deactivate the FTH subsystem on Windows Servers, please follow these steps:

  1. As an administrator, open the system registry for editing by typing "regedit" into a command line and execute it.
  2. In the registry, set key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\FTH\Enabled to "0".
  3. Run „Rundll32.exe fthsvc.dll,FthSysprepSpecialize“ in an administrative Command Prompt
  4. Restart the Server.

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/win32/win7appqual/fault-tolerant-heap?redirectedfrom=MSDN (valid for Microsoft Windows® Server® systems, too)

As the deactivation of the FTH Subsystem requires a system restart, please make sure you apply it off-air.

It is recommended to apply these changes to all vsmStudio, vsmGadgetserver and vSNMP systems, independent of the version of the OS and the release of the VSM component.

VSM images used for new server shipments will include the FTH deactivation effective FEB 2021.