jdalin@devildog.att.com (Jimmy Dalin) (02/08/91)
Help! I'm sure that this is an easy problem to solve, but so far it's got me absolutely stumped. I'm running Windows 3.0 on a 386-20 system in 386 enhanced mode. I started using 386MAX version 5.1 earlier this week, but the problem existed before 386MAX, and it still continues. I have 4 meg of memory. In a nutshell: when I double click on the DOS prompt within Windows to drop temporarily into DOS 4.01, virtually anything I try to do is rejected with an "Insufficient memory" error message. Even CHKDSK, for example, will not execute. Thanks to 386MAX, I can run a handy memory map routine (386UTIL.COM /M). When I run it from Windows, it tells me that I have about 575K available memory. When I drop into DOS and run the same utility, it tells me that I have only about 34K available memory. Even stranger, when I run the utility from DOS, the low memory numbers don't even add up to anything like 640K! It's as if some 540K of memory just disappeared; the utility tells me that memory stops at 1E00, instead of going up to A000, which is listed as the end point when I run the same utility from within Windows. I have no special drivers or TSR's running, and I installed Windows 3.0 taking all of the usual defaults. I have colleagues with basically the same setup as mine who are not experiencing this problem. Thanks in advance for any possible help.
davidr@hplsla.HP.COM (David M. Reed) (02/09/91)
I support PC's here, and so far I have come across 5 systems that had a
similar problem (that COMMAND.COM would not load due to insufficient
memory, or when loaded only had ~40 KBytes of free memory). Nothing
'normal' seemed to fix this: using the Run command to start COMMAND.COM,
using an icon such as DOS PROMPT, defining a PIF file, moving COMMAND.COM
to different locations on the disc, new copies of COMMAND.COM.
We discovered a workaround. Make a copy of COMMAND.COM using a different
name:
C:> COPY COMMAND.COM BOGUS.COM
Now have your icons, PIF files, or other programs use this new program.
It seems that any name _EXCEPT_ COMMAND.COM will work just as COMMAND.COM
should (we have tried DOS_CMD.COM, JUNK.COM, CMND.COM, DOS.COM, etc.).
We still boot up with "SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS /P /E:1024"; it is
only under MSWindows that we have to reference the renamed copy of
COMMAND.COM.
P.S. I have had this problem and solution verified by others here, and we
come away scratching our heads. Why doesn't the name COMMAND.COM allow
it to work? Does anyone out there have any clues? I'd be happy with
some reasonable theories.