Too Much Memory Crashes Windows

Windows 2000 and XP seem to thrive on an abundance of RAM. However, with Windows 9x too much RAM may be worse than too little, yet another quirky idiosyncrasy of the OS that we all know and love. According to a knowledge base article, machines running with over 512 MB of RAM may, "stop responding (hang) while Windows is starting, or halt and display the following error message:"

Insufficient memory to initialize windows. Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files, and restart your computer.

Attempting to open a command prompt while in a Windows Session will produce a similar error.

The problem occurs when Vcache, which determines how much RAM is present when Windows starts up, is too large. It then goes about consuming all of the memory addresses in the system area and leaves too few virtual memory addresses open – limiting the amount of tasks Windows can perform.

This flaw affects Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, and ME. For troubleshooting your overly-powered system, refer to this list of workarounds. Or as Microsoft also suggests, "Reduce the amount of memory that is installed in your computer to 512 MB or less."

That's what you get for taking advantage of cheap RAM prices.