There is not enough free memory to run this program.

[wcooper]

Hi All,

 

 

I was wondering if anyone could help at all?

 

 

A few of our staff members are receiving the following error message on their PCs:

"There is not enough free memory to run this program. Exit one or more programs, and then try again."

 

 

We have noticed that this only happens when users click on a Shortcut, for example clicking the Google Chrome shortcut on their desktop. However, if they open the application directly and not using a shortcut, it opens the software fine.

 

We've tried multiple things:

- Deleting profiles

- Scanning for corrupt files

- Look through Event viewer for errors/warnings

 

 

This definitely isn't a hardware issue, as the affected computers are pretty much brand new. They're OptiPlex 3280 AIO's with 8GB RAM.

Has anyone had this before and know what to do?

 

Someone suggested changing the virtual memory. We have done this and it worked for a few weeks but we're noticing that some of the computers are beginning to have this issue again.

 

This is starting to affect a large number of our staff members now.

 

 

Many thanks!

Will

Edited April 26, 2023 by ZeroHour

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

not sure what programs your running but this usually suggest RAM.

 

8GB RAM doesn't go too far these days.

[wcooper]

You'd think, but this is happening to staff that have just logged in and haven't even opened any programs.

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

do they have any programs that start with start up that might be causing it.

 

Otherwise yh its very strange, id be interested to see what others think.

[LeMarchand]

Does Task Manager show any resource hogs?

 

Anything weird in the properties of shortcuts? Do they point to the "proper" location? I recently set up a lovely redirected desktop for pupils and noticed that the "My Documents" link went to My Documents. Luckily it just threw a permissions error!

 

Also, are they copied to the local disk or in a network location? Can't imagine that where the shortcut is would cause that error, but might be worth ruling it out.

[mavhc]

Hi All,

 

 

I was wondering if anyone could help at all?

 

 

A few of our staff members are receiving the following error message on their PCs:

"There is not enough free memory to run this program. Exit one or more programs, and then try again."

 

 

We have noticed that this only happens when users click on a Shortcut, for example clicking the Google Chrome shortcut on their desktop. However, if they open the application directly and not using a shortcut, it opens the software fine.

 

We've tried multiple things:

- Deleting profiles

- Scanning for corrupt files

- Look through Event viewer for errors/warnings

 

 

This definitely isn't a hardware issue, as the affected computers are pretty much brand new. They're OptiPlex 3280 AIO's with 8GB RAM.

Has anyone had this before and know what to do?

 

Someone suggested changing the virtual memory. We have done this and it worked for a few weeks but we're noticing that some of the computers are beginning to have this issue again.

 

This is starting to affect a large number of our staff members now.

 

 

Many thanks!

Will

 

When you say open an application directly, do you mean running the exe file, or from the start menu?

[Koldov]

Unfortunately this is another one of those issues which is impossible to do any meaningful internet research on... also a very generic (thanks Microsoft) error message! Of course it doesn't help that it seems to happening at random...

 

Most results focus on actually having enough physical RAM, but I think 8GB is OK for basic day to day teaching laptops (and I'm going to presume you've run Task Manager/Resource Monitor and ruled out not actually having enough RAM). Also the fact that you can run the program (just not from a desktop shortcut) suggests something else is going on...

 

Unfortunately there is a lot that could be going on that we don't know about in your environment, but I did find one Reddit post which you've probably seen, with the same problem (but no solution).

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/pnqb0r/not_enough_memory_error_any_ideas_on_how_to_fix/

 

Various replies suggest:

 

Virtual Memory (which you've tried)

Impero

Cortex XDR (AV?)

Permissions

Resetting local security policies

The "memory" you're running out of is actually desktop heap (the error is about virtual memory, not physical).

Memory leak in an application

Workaround to Kill and Restart explorer.exe

Redirected (GPO) users’ Documents folders and Desktop folders to a file server. We use Microsoft’s Sync Center to sync these two folders to the users’ local hard drives so they are able to have an offline copy when away from the network.

 

Do any of these apply in your environment?

 

HTH

Edited April 27, 2023 by Koldov

[mavhc]

He said the program runs fine if not from a shortcut, so first question is: what does that mean.

 

And second is: what's the difference?

[denium]

Hi,

 

Sorry to be that guy who revives an old thread, but i don't suppose anyone has a fix for this issue?

 

We are now experiencing this issue here after upgrading our Dell Optiplex 3060s to Win 11

[Fazza]

Hi,

 

Sorry to be that guy who revives an old thread, but i don't suppose anyone has a fix for this issue?

 

We are now experiencing this issue here after upgrading our Dell Optiplex 3060s to Win 11

 

All I can think of is to put one of the computers in ADUC in to an OU with GPO inheritance blocked so no group policies are running and then do a gpupdate /force on the computer, reboot and see if the issue occurs then?

[Ditto]

Hi,

 

Sorry to be that guy who revives an old thread, but i don't suppose anyone has a fix for this issue?

 

We are now experiencing this issue here after upgrading our Dell Optiplex 3060s to Win 11

Was it a 10 to 11 upgrade or a fresh install of W11. If the former, I'd be inclined to go for a completely fresh install and then see if the issue remains.

[denium]

All I can think of is to put one of the computers in ADUC in to an OU with GPO inheritance blocked so no group policies are running and then do a gpupdate /force on the computer, reboot and see if the issue occurs then?

 

I'll give it a shot, thanks.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Was it a 10 to 11 upgrade or a fresh install of W11. If the former, I'd be inclined to go for a completely fresh install and then see if the issue remains.

 

Fresh install, really odd because it only seems to happen when running W11, W10 runs fine. All drivers etc are up to date.

[Fazza]

I'll give it a shot, thanks.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

Fresh install, really odd because it only seems to happen when running W11, W10 runs fine. All drivers etc are up to date.

 

I've seen it before at a school we supported for a while and they had older hardware they had just installed Windows 11 on and it was an old GPO that was causing the issue - can't recall the exact setting though. It may also be that a BIOS update is required.

[3s-gtech]

Is the shortcut definitely pointing at the exe directly, and not at a shortcut that could create a loop?

[denium]

Is the shortcut definitely pointing at the exe directly, and not at a shortcut that could create a loop?

 

Directly.

[psydii]

Windows up to date?

Apps all up to date?

Drivers up to date?

AV is it modern and up to date?

Are you running more thatn one AV / anti-malware system?

 

Also look at what stuff is loading at boot/logon and hooking into explorer. You can use Autoruns and the half-splitting technique to speed through the process of eliminating potential startup items causing it.

[wcooper]

Hi Denium,

 

We've managed to solve this issue, but not actually sure how!

A while ago we were re-structuring our Group Policy and basically started again (Not because of this issue, we were trying to be neat!) and this seems to have fixed the Free memory issue, so there must've been a group policy somewhere that was causing this but we just don't know what.

 

Sorry I can't be much help.

[denium]

Hi Denium,

 

We've managed to solve this issue, but not actually sure how!

A while ago we were re-structuring our Group Policy and basically started again (Not because of this issue, we were trying to be neat!) and this seems to have fixed the Free memory issue, so there must've been a group policy somewhere that was causing this but we just don't know what.

 

Sorry I can't be much help.

 

Thanks, currently going through our GPO's, although struggling to identify which one is causing the issue.

[mavhc]

Binary search, disable half of them, then half again, or reenable half if it's fixed

[psydii]

Binary search, disable half of them, then half again, or reenable half if it's fixed

"Binary Search" the technically correct name for the half-splitting technique

 

On doing this with GPOs, something I have seen people forget is that it takes time for a change to replicate between Domain Controllers, and your client may not load from teh DC on which the change was made. You need to force (or wait for) replication to take place between all the DCs... and then reboot/logon the computer twice to be absolutely sure the changed configuration has taken effect.

 

You can often get away with not replicating and rebooting just once - but when you are a/b testing you need to be absolutely sure that you are observing a system that has the state you intended to set.

[Ditto]

"Binary Search" the technically correct name for the half-splitting technique

You can often get away with not replicating and rebooting just once - but when you are a/b testing you need to be absolutely sure that you are observing a system that has the state you intended to set.

 

"a/b testing" the technically correct name for split testing or sometimes known as bucket testing

[mavhc]

a/b testing is where you compare the results of 2 versions run on some percentage of your users, eg do they prefer this wording or that

 

Binary search technically requires you to have the list in order and pick a midpoint, but you're still searching by eliminating half the results, and then half of those, so conceptually it's the same

[Ditto]

One thing to consider is that the issue may not be a single policy that is to blame for the problem, it could be a combination of more than one. Still, it is worth trying the approach first, and see if anything comes to light.

[Fazza]

Thanks, currently going through our GPO's, although struggling to identify which one is causing the issue.

 

The only way to do it is to create an OU and block GPO Inheritance on it and add 1 or 2 Group Policies at a time and then do a gpupdate /force on a computer in that OU and see if the problem occurs. Keep doing that until you work out which Group Policy it is. When you've found out which GPO it is you need to look at those settings and then go down the route of making a copy of the GPO and remove settings from it until the problem goes away.

[DavR]

You may well have already checked this, but do you have fast user switching enabled?

 

If you've got multiple users logged on to a workstation with limited resources, that's gonna max out your memory quite quickly.