Winsat.exe formal fails returning error 21 in memory assessment

Question

Dear all,

we´re running into an issue that shows up during our OS deployment sequence. Calling "Winsat.exe formal" as SYSTEM returns unspecified error 21 on only a very specific System configuration, a Dell Precision 5860 Tower Workstation with Intel Xeon w7.2495X and 128GB DDR5 Memory.

Other previous and current Systems (~125 different configuration throughout the company) including Dell Precision 5860 Tower Workstations with Intel Xeon w7-2475X and w3-2435, both with 32GB DDR5 Memory are not showing that behavior. It seems to be relateted to either the CPU or the amount of memory installed but i don´t see how i could fix the issue (see mem assessment section of winsat.log). Removing half of the memory does not change the behavior, the results are still the same.

Hopefully someone else has experienced the same issue and can help me get those new machines flying.

384062 (5480) - exe\main.cpp:1764: > Run Assessment mem

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1920: Adjusted the priority of Memory Assessment thread to 2

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:1231: DoOperationThreadEntryPoint Launched with priority 0

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

384062 (5480) - memory\memat.cpp:0610: Adjusted the priority of the Memory copy thread to 15

386156 (5480) - exe\main.cpp:2058: > mem Assessment FAILED due to an error

386156 (5480) - exe\main.cpp:3865: > Power request 'execution' successfully cleared.

386171 (5480) - exe\processresults.cpp:4125: > Wrote video memory bandwidth to the registry 196500000

386171 (5480) - exe\processresults.cpp:0985: > Wrote cpu expression compression score to the registry 259

386171 (5480) - exe\processwinsaterror.cpp:0298: Unspecified error 21 occured.

386171 (5480) - exe\processwinsaterror.cpp:0319: Writing exit code, cant msg and why msg to registry

386187 (5480) - exe\main.cpp:2764: > Successfully reenabled EMD.

386187 (5480) - exe\main.cpp:2790: > Composition restarted

386187 (5480) - exe\watchdog.cpp:0339: Watch dog system shutdown

386187 (5480) - exe\main.cpp:5040: > exit value = 21.

Answer 1

Sadly, it took Microsoft Support almost a year to tell us that WinSAT.exe is not being developed anymore and considered a deprecated feature that might or might not work on current and future hardware. We´ve removed it from our OS installation sequences.