Low-System Memory Messages in Virtual Machines of Windows

• Microsoft Windows operating system versions 3.0, 3.0a, 3.1, 3.11

SYMPTOMS

When you run the MS-DOS Prompt from Microsoft Windows in 386 enhanced mode, you see less than the 640K total system memory if you run utilities such as CHKDSK.

CAUSE

If Windows 3.0 or 3.1 is installed on a system with an earlier version of Windows (including run-time versions), the system may have retained the [pif] section in the WIN.INI file. The [pif] section was used in earlier Windows versions to set the memory size for certain applications. In particular, it may have a memory size listed for COMMAND.COM that limits the size of the virtual machine created when you run the MS-DOS Prompt. As a result, you may get an inaccurate reading of your system memory.

If you have these limited [pif] settings, you may also generate the "Insufficient memory" messages when you try to execute the MS-DOS Prompt, or the "Processing cannot continue" message when you execute commands from within the MS-DOS virtual machine.