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command prompt "Not enough memory."

Anonymous
2016-01-17T13:14:20+00:00

When running the program 'more' (more.exe) from a command prompt,  the message

"Not enough memory."  

appears.

Steps:

  1. Go to Start,
  2. In the Run... bar type “cmd” and press enter.
  3. In the appearing command prompt type:  “more” and press enter.

The message "Not enough memory." appears.

In the old DOS times this was an indication that there was not enough memory (possibly because of the 1MB limit). The command 

mem doesn't work anymore ('mem' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.)

  1. How does command prompt memory work in Windows 7?
  2. Can a user assess how much memory is available?
  3. Is the message really about shortage of memory or a symptom of something else?

An additional thing I noticed, that might or might not be related, that the find command doesn't work properly. When I do find on a text file, it prints the usual header, but doesn't find anything.

For example:

C:\Windows\System32>find /v "x"  ipconfig_results.txt

---------- IPCONFIG_RESULTS.TXT

C:\Windows\System32>find "x" ipconfig_results.txt

---------- IPCONFIG_RESULTS.TXT

Note that the /v option should display all lines not containing 'x'. Basically, if the text file is not empty, at least one of these command should give output.

I've searched on "command prompt 'not enough memory' Win7" and similar, using both Google and answers.microsoft.com, and found only articles with different errors, like memory problems of Win7 itself, or old DOS version (like Win98), or ""There is not enough free memory to run this program ...", but nothing like this.

Any suggestions more than welcome.

System:

Windows 7 Professional with SP1 and all latest updates

4GB RAM, currently 951 MB available and 328 Free (although this fluctuates of course). 

Running CMD.EXE version:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]

Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Problem occurs both with a normal user and with an administrator.

Problem doesn't occur with on an identical system (i.e. identical hardware and OS and security software; other APPS different).

T

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-07T21:44:26+00:00

    When running the program 'more' (more.exe) from a command prompt,  the message

    "Not enough memory."  

    appears.

    1. How does command prompt memory work in Windows 7?
    2. Can a user assess how much memory is available?
    3. Is the message really about shortage of memory or a symptom of something else?

      0. The command is indeed a PE file (.exe), but for backwards-compatibility is named more.com.

      2. Not (directly) in current versions of Windows. In older versions (up to XP), you could use the mem command (e.g., mem /c), but that is no longer available. Now, you would have to use a third-party tool. Even then, it’s not really necessary because…

      3. This issue is indeed not about a memory shortage and is indeed a symptom of something else:

    You are likely using a different code-page, probably Unicode. You can verify this by running the chcp command (with no arguments). It will probably return 65001 (UTF-8).

    Now try switching to CP437 (by running chcp 437) and then run more.com. It should work now.

    It seems that using a Unicode code-page breaks some functionality. It is likely that the more command was not updated to support multi-byte character sets, so unfortunately, you will have to stick with another code-page.

    Here are two threads with some technical discussion on the matter.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-18T08:07:11+00:00

    More information.

    I've done a 'dir' to identify all cmd.exe-s on the system and found four. See picture.

    There are four:

    in C:\windows\system32

    in C:\windows\syswow64

    in C:\windows\winxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-command-prompt_...

    in C:\windows\winxs\wow64_microsoft-windows-command-prompt_...

    Starting the SYSWOW64 version:

    Note the typing of the full path.

    Now 'more' and 'find' work perfectly in the new cmd.exe window; in the old window it still doesn't!

    Working in SYSWOW64 version. See screen shot below (resized the window for readability on this forum).

    Note the full path in the title bar.

    Not working in the original cmd. See figure below.

    So what can make the cmd.exe-s behave differently?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-01-18T06:53:13+00:00

    Here is the screenshot of the Resource Monitor. As said earlier, about 300 MB is free for Windows.

    It's worth noting that memory from the command prompt works quite different than the memory for the Windows OS. The performance monitor shows the WinOS memory, not the command prompt memory.  Even if it did, it doesn't explain why a program of about 25 kB cannot run, while programs using 10, 100 MB of memory just run fine.

    How does the command prompt memory actually work? I know how it worked in old DOS (6.22 etc.), but this is different.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-01-17T15:56:22+00:00

    It might be better to show us what resource monitor shows because the numbers you state are very low,

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