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SQM bug in Windows 7? Something is wrong... (Updated)

Jan. 19, 2009 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

The other day, Rafael of WithinWindows fame discovered a weird bug in Windows 7 that causes all MSI-based installations to fail. Chris123NT wrote it up, describing it as an SQM (part of CIEP, the internal feedback program) bug:

Many users have started experiencing random crashing of explorer and msiexec.exe when trying to start Windows Update or install anything that uses an MSI based installer.  This issue is bad enough that some people have even formatted because of it, only to have it come back again.

Rafael has discovered that the fault lies with the SQM Client which is part of the Customer Experience Improvement Program.  It seems that ANY process that calls WinSqmStartSession in ntdll.dll will start crashing when MachineThrottling is enabled in the registry, which seems to happen as a result of CEIP running.

There are two workarounds for this issue.

Bryant at AeroXperience followed this up with an editorial of sorts ...

Until this is all resolved, if you’re a beta tester, please kill the CEIP in Windows 7 and proceed to report any UX quirks you run into through the submit feedback tool next to the minimize button in the titlebar of every major window.

And even Mary Jo Foley got in on the act.

Bryant and I had an IM exchange about it this afternoon and he noted that it needs to be publicized. I agree with that. But. Is it a SQM client bug?

Not necessarily. Rafael tells me that ...

Chris and I both reported this bug to Microsoft as part of a team effort. (The beta program has started "team-based bug reporting.") With regards to the problem, all I know is the fault lies within ntdll.dll, in a function named WinSqmStartSession. The SQM API is naturally undocumented so it is unclear as to what the exact problem is at this time.

It was noted that upon process execution, renaming the registry value works. It's a bit of a stretch to claim "Machine Throttling" is the cause of failure here. I will investigate it further.

Regardless, something is going on. I'm curious to see what Microsoft has to say about this in the coming days.

UPDATE: Microsoft has already provided a "fix" for the bug, which is acknowledges is "an issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7." It will be trigger via the Windows 7 Action Center, naturally.  Thanks to everyone that wrote in about this.

Discuss this Article 11

magadass
on Jan 19, 2009
I've had this happen 3 times now but I thought it was because I was fiddling a bit to much with drivers. I am glad to know the cause of this issue. In fact my brand new install started to exhibit this problem just last night so that would make 4 times I guess now. I wonder how much this distorts their error reporting, since this is directly affecting the error reporting and this will cause quit a substantial amount of false positive errors to be submitted I am guessing it can't be good for the metrics.
kadarzsolt
on Jan 19, 2009
Something triggers this bug. I have installed Win7 on a notebook and on a desktop. My portable also has Adobe Acrobat Pro installed and that is the only difference between the two platforms - not including drivers of course (the desktop only has adobe reader). The first encounter for me was when I tried to uninstall Acrobat Pro. It crashed immediately after launching the uninstall routine. After that more app setups have failed, most notably the MS SaveAsPDForXPS add-in. I went to the desktop and the same saveas... installed without fuss. Workaround works, I have followed the steps and now the office add-in is installed correctly. THANKs guys!!!
kadarzsolt
on Jan 19, 2009
... and one more thing: the fact that my Send Feedback Tools failed to send reports back to Microsoft (i guess they do not need bug report from anyone) annoyed me so much, that I stripped the thing out of Windows7 along with all the "For testing purposes" stuff. Now I have a Win7 setup that has no indication of it being a beta (except the fish).
ambaranek
on Jan 19, 2009
The problem started occuring for me after installing photoshop CS4. I was trying to install Live Sync when I first encountered it.
shark47
on Jan 19, 2009
Microsoft needs to fix this bug ASAP and not wait for RTM. That said, 7 is behaving quite well on my system so far. I like it ... a lot!
subzerohitman721
on Jan 19, 2009
Awesome. Good workaround and simple to administer. Bugs like these are common in beta's. Eventually it will be fixed. This didn't start happeing to me until today. Glad its now nipped in the bud. Windows Update working just fine. So far thats the only major glitch in Windows other than the write catching enabled by default in Windows 7. It lowers your WEI score. Turn it off in the device manager and your performance shoots up. Other than that, many of the technical friends I have in the business really love Windows 7. A lot of my friends who run Mac love it too.
subzerohitman721
on Jan 19, 2009
This was on the action center when I rebooted into Windows just an hour ago. Solve a problem with Windows 7 beta An issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7 beta is causing Explorer and some MSI-based installers to stop working properly. To solve this problem, follow these steps: Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. In the User Account Control window, verify that Program name is Windows Command Processor, and then click Yes. In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type or paste the following text at the prompt: reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f Press Enter to install the solution. If The operation completed successfully displays, close the Administrator: Command Prompt window to complete this procedure. If "ERROR: Access is denied" displays, repeat this procedure from the top, making sure you clicked Run as administrator in step two. FYI for anyone.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Jan 20, 2009
subzero " So far thats the only major glitch in Windows other than the write catching enabled by default in Windows 7. It lowers your WEI score." Coincidentally, the Engineering Windows 7 blog has an excellent blog post on the new WEI scores, what they're testing differently and why your scores will likely change between Windows Vista and Windows 7 beta. They go into the disk scores in a fair amount of detail. The post is at: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/01/19/engineering-the-windows-7-wi...
xtreem0
on Jan 20, 2009
this was interesting. Microsoft is now asking users to disable the CEIP... Here is a solution message i received. Quite: " Solve a problem with Windows 7 beta An issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7 beta is causing Explorer and some MSI-based installers to stop working properly. To solve this problem, follow these steps: Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. In the User Account Control window, verify that Program name is Windows Command Processor, and then click Yes. In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type or paste the following text at the prompt: reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f Press Enter to install the solution. If The operation completed successfully displays, close the Administrator: Command Prompt window to complete this procedure. If "ERROR: Access is denied" displays, repeat this procedure from the top, making sure you clicked Run as administrator in step two. " Just thought that was interesting.
xtreem0
on Jan 20, 2009
oh someone already posted it sorry lol.
anonymous
on Jan 20, 2009
Maybe you’ve had the same problem I've had.  You double-click an MSI only to be greeted by the a

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