Unkillable console windows

Question

I'm developing an OpenGL based 2d simulation with GLUT under Visual C++ 2008, sometimes when I have an assert() or unhandled exception and break into the debugger, the GLUT display window closes, but the console window remains open.They just cant be killed!!!

They do not show up with Task manager, Process Explorer or any other tool, I cannot find the window handle using the Spy++ tool either.

Worst thing is they prevent my system (Windows XP) from shutting down, I have to manually poweroff (and of course I have to run chkdsk on my drives and invariably it finds and fixes minor errors after bad shutdowns)

Has anyone come across such an issue?

Answer 1

It's a driver problem. There's nothing you can do besides hope that you get an updated driver.

Answer 2

I started noticing this several months ago when debugging a simple console application on XP - not sure if it was due to our switch from VS2005 to VS2008 or some patch from MS.