What is Memory Validator?
Memory Validator is an advanced memory and resource leak detector for Windows.
It works with versions of Windows from NT® 4.0 and above, running on the Intel i386 (and compatible) family of processors.
What does it do?
If you think your software might be leaking or even corrupting memory or resources, then Memory Validator will help with that - and more.
Memory Validator is fast and does not require the target program to be recompiled or relinked.
It detects:
•memory leaks
•handle leaks
•memory corruptions
•uninitialized memory
•buffer overruns and underruns
It finds performance problems related to:
•memory allocation and deallocation
•resource allocation and deallocation
•fragmented memory heaps
And it does this by tracking:
•C runtime heaps
•Win32 heaps
•GlobalAlloc heap
•LocalAlloc heap
•VirtualAlloc heaps
•Win32 resource handles
•COM object creation and destruction
•.Net object and .Net handle creation and garbage collection
Not all the above capabilities are enabled 'out of the box' due to extra performance impacts involved. Also, note that not all capabilities can be enabled simultaneously.
You can learn more about memory management on Windows at the MSDN Dev Center
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The main sections of Memory Validator
The user interface is split via tabs into seven separate sections (+Tutorials), each dedicated to a different task for analysing a problem that is present in the target program.
Here's a summary of those sections, each of which is covered in full in The User Interface section.
A high level dashboard for everything that you might want to look at. Click on any statistic to see more detailed information. |
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Displays any leaked memory or handles, and memory errors, such as double frees, incorrect frees, uninitialized data etc.
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Shows a visual timeline of total memory, handle allocations and memory allocations.
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Statistics for types, sizes, allocation location, generations and object ages.
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.Net specific user interfaces for memory snapshots, heap dumps and .net leak analysis.
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Allocation hotspots, allocation coverage, allocation queries, memory page layout and virtual memory analysis.
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Lists diagnostic information collected by the stub.
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Tutorial exercises for people new to the software. |
