Chkdsk on Windows 7 is one memory-leaking Sonofabit, Uses 30 GB of RAM

My desktop PC has 32 GB of RAM. It’s ridiculous in that way, by almost any standard. I assumed that when I hit full usage of memory it would be because my entire virtual network of random servers, etc. would be running at once.

I was wrong. All it took was running Chkdsk.exe on an external HDD.

See below for yourself:

In case you can’t see it clearly, that’s Chkdsk.exe taking up 30,060,916 KB of RAM. Otherwise known as 30.06 GB of RAM.

Apparently this has been a known issue for a long time.

If I find a resolution, I’ll post one here in problem/solution format. If you have any tips, drop a line in the comments!

Update: Apparently the OS shipped with this bug and there’s no attempt to correct it as it’s a very low-level architecture issue. I’ll check Windows 8 in a VM and see if it runs into the same problem.