Windows 10 - RS4/1803 - Command prompt error: "Not enough memory resources are available to process this command"

Opening a command prompt (cmd.exe) when booted from the Windows 10 (1803) ADK WinPE, WinRE, or  when booted from the Windows 10 1803 install media you will encounter the following error:

"Not enough memory resources are available to process this command"

If you open a command prompt on your machine (not booted to one of the environments outlined above), you will see a copyright string that looks like:

 

“(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.”.

During a refactoring of the components responsible for keeping these copyright strings, a resource file was accidentally not included. As a result, when the command prompt goes to read the string, it cannot find it, and the code assumes the reason the string was not found is due to a low memory condition.

What you should know:

  • There is no low memory condition. It is just a bad error message.
  • This issue has no impact on any functionality
  • This error can be safely ignored.
  • This error has been corrected in the next version of Windows 10 (RS5).
  • If you are seeing this error and you are not booted into a RS4 pre-install environment, this is not your issue.

 

If you encounter this error, and it caused anything, e.g. confusion, outrage, stopped a deployment, etc., please leave a comment. We are trying to determine if it makes sense to backport the RS5 fix to RS4.

 

Thanks!