ReadProcessMemory fails on some Pages (GetLastError()=299)

Question

I try to read all commited pages of a process (Win7-64). On most pages it works but it fails for a few pages. I cannot explain why. Here is my test programme (compiled x32, tested in Win7-64):

#include <windows.h>

void main()
{
    HANDLE hProc = OpenProcess(PROCESS_VM_READ | PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION,FALSE,GetCurrentProcessId());

    SYSTEM_INFO si;
    ZeroMemory(&si,sizeof(SYSTEM_INFO));
    GetSystemInfo(&si);

    char* buf = new char[si.dwPageSize];

    for (unsigned i = 0; i < 0x7fff0; i++)
    {
        void* baseOffs = (void*) (i * si.dwPageSize);
        MEMORY_BASIC_INFORMATION mbi;
        ZeroMemory(&mbi,sizeof(MEMORY_BASIC_INFORMATION));

        if (VirtualQueryEx(hProc, baseOffs, &mbi, sizeof(MEMORY_BASIC_INFORMATION)) == 0)
        {
            MessageBox(NULL, TEXT("VirtualQueryEx failed"),TEXT(""),MB_OK);
        }

        if (mbi.State == MEM_COMMIT)
        {
            SIZE_T numByteWritten = 0;
            if(ReadProcessMemory(hProc, baseOffs,buf,si.dwPageSize,&numByteWritten) == FALSE)
                OutputDebugString(TEXT("bad\n")); //GetLastError()==ERROR_PARTIALLY_READ; numByteWritten == 0;
            else
                OutputDebugString(TEXT("good\n"));

        }
    }

    delete[] buf;
}

I tired to look into the MEMORY_BASIC_INFORMATION for the failing pages but I didn't find anything strange there. Also the number of failing pages varies from run to run (in average about 5). WHat prevents me from reading these pages? Do I need to adjust some privilges in the process token?

Answer 1

A little bit of debugging and something interesting is identified: all pages that fail have protection bit PAGE_GUARD set (see MSDN doc). As I interpret the docs, it is by design that you cannot read these pages with ReadProcessMemory.

if(ReadProcessMemory(hProc, baseOffs,buf,si.dwPageSize,&numByteWritten) == FALSE) {
    assert(mbi.Protect & 0x100);
    OutputDebugString(TEXT("bad\n")); //GetLastError()==ERROR_PARTIALLY_READ; numByteWritten == 0; 
}
else {
    assert(!(mbi.Protect & 0x100));
    OutputDebugString(TEXT("good\n")); 
}

Answer 2

The page size on 32-bit Windows is not the same as the page size on 64-bit Windows. Therefore, the page size is a per-process value. The page size for your process is not necessarily the same as the page size of the process you are reading from. Use the RegionSize member of the MEMORY_BASIC_INFORMATION instead. That is the actual size of the affected region.