Resolving the "Out of Environment Space" Error When Installing the U-M Preconfigured Version of VirusScan 4.5.1

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Issue: When running the U-M Preconfigured VirusScan 4.5.1 installer (vs451um.exe), a message "Out of environment space" appears

Platforms affected: So far, we're only aware of this occurring on Windows 98 and Windows ME systems, though Windows 95 should be similarly vulnerable. It seems unlikely that this will occur on Windows NT or Windows 2000-class systems.

Resolution:

First, the easiest one: the installer dated 09 October, 2001 (seethe initial splash screen) resolves this issue, so far as we know. If you have a previous version, we recommend that you download the current one instead.

If you don't want to download a 17 MB file again, you can try the suggestions that follow:

There are several approaches. We'll start with the easiest. This has been tested successfully and we're not aware of any cases where it has not worked, so use it!:

• Modify the CONFIG.SYS file:
  1. Use NotePad to open C:\CONFIG.SYS
  2. Add the line
        SHELL=%COMSPEC% /P /E:2048
     and save the file.
  3. Restart the computer and re-run the vs451um installer
  4. If you like, after a successful install, re-edit C:\CONFIG.SYS to remove the line you entered in step 2 above, save, and restart.

• Run a shell that uses more environment space:

  The easier way to do this is to use WinZIP Shareware (www.winzip.com) or equivalent to extract the files from vs451um.exe to a folder, then jump to step 7 below.

  If you do not have e.g., WinZip, there's a kludgy way to use the installer itself. Perhaps after you consider the following, you'll decide that it's easier just to download and install WinZip.... ;-) [In that case, you extract to some folder; you can use a subfolder in C:\VSINSTALL.451 as suggested below, or anywhere else.]

  1. Run vs451um.exe until it pauses at the first document -- the one about not installing if one is not the machine's admin, "caution.wri"
  2. Search %TEMP% for WZSE*.TMP -- WinZip Self Extractor makes folders of the name WZSE0.TMP, WZSE1.TMP, ... in %TEMP% when the installer runs.
  3. If there is more than one such folder, check the time stamps of the folders: we want the one that is dated "right now"
  4. Copy the folder to e.g., the VSINSTALL.451 folder in the root of the C: drive. [If it is moved instead of copied, that may make for a less than graceful exit in a moment. So copy it.]
  5. Close the Find window, and close the "caution.wri" document.
  6. In the subsequent dialog, choose

     Ok. If you just unZIPped, you'd start here:

  7. Open an MSDOS window
  8. In the window, type

        CD C:\VSINSTALL.451\WZSEx.TMP\U-M

     (where "x" above is replaced by the appropriate number) and press [Enter]

  9. Type

        %COMSPEC% /E:2048 /C 451setup.BAT

     and press

  That should do it. Of course, if you need a LOT of environment space, the /E: parameter accepts values between 256 and 32767, so we have considerable room for tweaking. 2048 seems a reasonable compromise.

   -BPB