I suspect part of the answer would be shown in the WIndows Task manager >>> Perfomance >>> show Kernal times.
The OS (operating system) exposes an evnvironment in which our code runs. That environment OPERATES the hardware as required to provide that environment. One of the operations it performs for us is controlling the memory allocation and mapping in order to provide the Virtual Memory our code run in. Virtual Memory is composed of hardware that translates memory address fetches into physical memory fetches. VM allows you to run multiple applications on the same machine at the same time where each of the processes have access to up to 4Gig of memory even though the machine has far less than the total of what all of the processes THINKS it has access to.
When the OS discovers a need to implement a new environment for a yet another process or expand the mapped memory space of an existing thread, the OS drops into Kernal mode where is can acces the memory mapping hardware and twiddle the bits to set up the new memory.
While in Kernal mode, normal processing is stopped until the mapping is complete.
So...
You have found out why critical processes running under Windows is a "Hit and Miss" game.
But then again, I am just guessing.
Ben
