FYI: 2K/XP can run out of memory at 16MB !

Capt'n Midnight

W2K/XP could not start because \Winnt\System32\Config\System.ced is missing or corrupt
http://is-it-true.org/nt/nt2000/atips/atips118.shtml
Intel and ARC (RISC) systems have a design limit such that 16 megabyte (MB) of memory is available at this stage of the boot process and the following must fit in that available 16M RAM :
loader
kernel
HAL
boot drivers
system registry hive
If the System registry hive exceeds 13MB, you get that error. To resolve the problem, you have to replace it with a backup version.

OfflerCrocGod

Hold it would this not affect all operating systems, it's hardware specific right not really a problem that windows has anything to do with??. I can't figure out exactly why this would be only windows specific, when Intel is used I suppose they mean X86, so AMD's would be affected eswell.

Capt'n Midnight

It's a bit like the old DOS problem with windows 3.1 or Novell
The first part of the program had to load in 1MB (AFAIK that's still the case with the boot loader) and it loads the memory management software which then changes the mode the porcessor uses to address memory, so yes it is i386 compatible specific and would of course affect AMD's and Cyrix's etc...

BUT the point is that it looks like M$ have painted themselves into a corner by loading a variable sized file that could reach 13MB into a fixed size area BEFORE they change into the 4GB addressing mode. Bit like system resources all over again (fixed size hence they show a % of the 64K buffers - and even then in win9x 100% only = ~55KB) and convention memory etc...

PS. in XP have a look at the files in the folder \windows\system\config
my SYSTEM file is 5,242,880 (PC is ~ 3 months old and M$ reg files rarely get smaller esp. if you are in the habbit of storing backup settings / HW profiles so you can choose a previous config to when (not if) your HW profile goes belly up..

BigEejit

I have seen this a fair bit ... on everything from windows 2k prof up to windows 2k advanced server.... no sign of it yet in our windows 2k3 servers .... stupid fuckers Microshaft..... anyway .. after being stung once I decided to do a clean install and make a backup of the system and system.alt files ... you can copy them from your backup folder in console after booting off the CD ... this can be a pain if you have a lot of software installed after, but on our servers there wont be much new software installed.... the test servers get this every few months though :rolleyes:

Moriarty

I had a registry of ~17mb in an old win2k pro installation and i didnt have any problems..

Capt'n Midnight

I had a registry of ~17mb in an old win2k pro installation and i didnt have any problems..
....
PS. in XP have a look at the files in the folder \windows\system\config

On my pc Software is 15,204,352 (24MB for all the reg filesl)