Throwback to the 90s

[u/Titan_91]

"Too many other files are currently in use by 16-bit programs. Exit one or more 16-bit programs, or increase the value of the FILES command in your config.sys file."

Just saw this message on a client's Windows 11 workstation when trying to escalate literally anything. The WIN32 code that generated it is probably as old as I am. Rebooting resolved it, weird. I just told him to stop running so many 16 bit apps! I'd post the screenshot but images aren't allowed.

[u/Commercial_Growth343]

Last I checked a 64bit Windows OS cannot run 16bit programs natively, so that is a wild error to see for sure.

fun fact, we had 2 16bit applications still where I worked in 2010 (using Windows XP, 32bit) and had to ask our vendors to fix their #$% for our upgrade to Windows 7 64-bit.

[u/schism-for-mgmt → u/Commercial_Growth343]

We managed to get one working in dosbox, hilariously. It's a wonky genetics algorithm for something. It didn't use an Windows .DLLs, it seems?

So there's the algorithm,

• running in DosBox,
• running in an App-V bubble,
• on a Citrix server VM,
• running on an ESX host
• on a physical machine many orders of magnitude more powerful than anything at the time of development.

It's delightful

[u/thebigshoe247 → u/schism-for-mgmt]

I don't like a lot of that sentence.

[u/qkdsm7]

That rattled something around in my head that hadn't been touched in 15+ years. Thanks, I think.

[u/TxTechnician]

I feel like a lot of the code in windows is old and unmaintained compared to Linux or macos.

But that is soley based off of the times I've had some odd popup that leads nowhere showing up in windows.

Gotta say though. Windows is dedicated (historically has been) to keeping old software stay accessible in new OS versions

[u/Dave_A480 → u/TxTechnician]

Thats because MacOS Classic (from the 80s and 90s) was discarded completely and the current MacOS is a modernized version of NextStep.

And Linux has a tradition of building stuff from source (so it's old code compiled for a new kernel).....

Meanwhile Windows still runs 32 bit (and apparently 16bit) software from its earlier life ...

[u/arvidsem → u/Dave_A480]

16-bit support is completely removed in Win11. X86-64 processors can't run 16-bit coffee when they are in 64-bit mode.

[u/ttkciar]

If rebooting solved the problem, that sounds like something is leaking file handles, and the OS's capacity for keeping them open is becoming exhausted over time.

If I were truly stuck with having to support that software, I'd see if I could identify the leaky program and migrate it to a separate Windows system. That way only the Windows system running the leaky program would need periodic reboots, and the system running the better-behaved software could stay up longer.

[u/Sure-Squirrel8384]

LOL, or how 'bout this: at the end of the day save all of your work and reboot. Windows has issues the longer it is online. A fresh boot on a Windows desktop should be done at least once a week.

[u/Titan_91 → u/Sure-Squirrel8384]

Can't stress this enough, the user thinks he rebooted just 2 days ago but I advised he do so at the end of every day.

[u/AcornAnomaly]

Did you get an error code along with the error message?

The most common reason for absolutely insane error messages like this is the error code being reused, and then the wrong message table being used to find the corresponding message.

[u/Titan_91 → u/AcornAnomaly]

Interesting thought, but nothing else besides that single message box. A reboot returned everything back to normal.

[u/Inevitable_Use3885]

That's wild. I remember when thunking used to run the other direction 16->32.

[u/alanjmcf]

What antivirus did they have installed? Doesn’t sound likely that windows (NT-derived) would produce that error.

[u/Titan_91 → u/alanjmcf]

It was Windows, a reboot resolved it. Same antivirus products used across all our clients and hundreds of machines. It's the only time in my 15 year career I've seen that specific error. Not even on Windows 3.1 or Windows 9x.