The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000044)

Troubleshooting a Windows 2003 x86 server today. It failed to respond to a monitoring ping. On logon, got the following error message:

Windows - Application Error
The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000044). Click on OK to terminate the application.
[OK]

Rebooted the server, logged on successfully. Cause:
Event Type: ErrorEvent
Source: SrvEvent
Category: None
Event ID: 2019
Date: 11/6/2011
Time: 7:25:55 AM
User: N/A
Computer: *********2
Description:The server was unable to allocate from the system nonpaged pool because the pool was empty.

i.e. Kernel memory exhausted. Can't tell at this stage what caused it. Last time I looked into one of these it was AV software. At least x64 has higher kernel memory limits.

Interestingly, the last logged server uptime event before the crash showed an uptime of 100743098 seconds. That's 3.19 years. Not bad from an uptime perspective. Terrible from a security perspective.

That server is not under my direct control, but I'm going to see if I can influence the server's owner to patch it on a regular basis.

B

PS More info from the Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting Blog here:
Understanding Pool Consumption and Event ID: 2020 or 2019
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2006/12/18/understanding-pool-consumption-and-event-id_3a00_--2020-or-2019.aspx