Windows OS - GDI Leak Tracking

GDI leak tracking is a project I wrote inside Windows OS (available in May/2023 update) where I develop algorithms that detect leaks in Windows GDI. GDI is one of the critical components in OS. Win32 apps use GDI to draw anything on the screen. If an application does not release GDI objects properly, GDI APIs will start failing, leading to unexpected behavior such as rendering problems, hangs, or sometimes crashes, leading to data loss.

In order to improve user experience with Windows Apps, We need to detect any leaks in using GDI and report them to the developer to fix them. For that, the Windows OS monitors App's GDI usage and analyzes and reports any suspected resource leaks. For Apps owned by Microsoft and Microsoft partners, there will be bugs automatically open and assigned to the right teams. All information needed to debug and fix leaks will be included in the bug. For developers who are not part of Microsoft partner networks, They can debug GDI Leak in your App by following these steps.

• 1. Add this register key and reboot computer [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting] "ConfigureArchive"=dword:00000002
• 2. Use your Application until you see report been sent in "view all problem reports" by your App. In this example i use app named "WindowsProject1.exe" that i created for demo.
• 3. Open "view all problem reports" App, and Follow these steps in image to debug leak

  

  

  As you can see from image above, the stack trace shows there is leak is in pen object that created by never been released.

  Project Impact

  Given we cannot share data about internal App impact, here is some external Apps

  • Find and Fix leaks in open source project named TaskbarXI
  • Bady written MSDN lead to developer to not release GDI object #1
  • Bady written MSDN lead to developer to not release GDI object #2

API Migration

A tool that makes migration between two different libraries easy, No need to read libraries documentation to be able to migrate to the newest library, only with a single click, we will provide you with the function mapping between two libraries. More details.

Visual Languages (Visual Learning)

To bridge the gap between block-based and text-based environments, we developed a hybrid-based learning approach. We found that on average a hybrid-based approach increases the students understanding of programming foundations, memorization, and ease of transition by more than 30% when compared to a block-based to text based learning approach. Tool as Open Source.