MS-DOS Memory error

[dbegmore 0]

I was organizing the files on my hard drive, when i found a file which was 670MB and looked like an MS-DOS file. Curious to see what it was, I opened it only to see the following error

 

Quote:

"Program too big to fit in Memory"

 

SYSTEM SPECs ::

Windows XP Sp1

Intel 845G board

Pentium 4 2GHz

128 + 256 MB of RAM (DDR)

2 HDD's -- 40 GB + 40 GB

 

Is there any workaround for this ? Or can nothing be done ?

Thanks,

[DosFreak 2]

Let me get this straight....

 

You were organizing files on your HD.

You found a file which was 670mb in size and looked like an "MS-DOS" file.

You then tried to execute it.

It then throws up the message "Program too big to fit in Memory".

 

 

No "MS-DOS" file that is executable should ever be that big in size. Although I suppose you could make an SFX that could probably be that big...even tho you should not be executing it unless you know exactly where it came from.

 

If you notice a 670mb file on your HD and you don't know what it is then you should:

 

1. Virus scan it.

2. DO NOT EXECUTE IT. Open it with a archive program like 7zip/winrar. (Even then there could potentially be security issues here as well).

3. Even better don't do #2 and just delete it. If you don't know what it is and it's not a common windows file then just delete it.

 

 

[dbegmore 0]

dont get me wrong. im sure i got the file off a cd ,.. and used it before, but i need to know about the error .....

[dbegmore 0]

I have tried opening with Dosbox... but there's no effect even after an hour of executing.... I tried changing compatibility first..

[Myke 0]

I think this has to do with your RAM as well. The file itself is almost twice the amount of RAM that you have in your system. Seeing as it is being executed outside of Windows, virtual memory will not be in use.

[danleff 0]

It's not the hiberfil.sys file, is it?

[DosFreak 2]

You can get the "Program is too big to fit in memory" if the header of the file is corrupted or if you put a .exe/.com extension on a non .exe/.com file.

[dbegmore 0]

oh. ok. I did a bit of searching and found that sometimes pirated files have the extn. .exe and we might hav to change it to .iso I tried that too to no avail.

 

I have also read that people with 1gb and such RAM receive the same error when trying to open DOS files sized 100KB. ??!?

[Kain Bloodstone 0]

Does anybody remember virtual memory?

I know that DOS used to use virtual memory to allocate space for opening and executing applications. You used to be able to tell DOS how much virtual memory you want to allocate for running applications via boot disks. Anyway, could this be the problem?