I've never been sure about using MEM under Windows - I'm not sure what it really reports but it seems to me that each DOS Window opened gets it's own complete environment complete with memory allocation. Here's an example that paerhaps John can explain:

I go to MSDOS prompt, open up a DOS Window, type MEM and note that I have 545K of conventional memory free.

I then start a DOS program - Turbo Pascal 4.5.

I check my MEM in the original DOS Window and it still reports 545K of conventional memory even though TP is running.

TP has a nice little feature that lets me shell to DOS so I use that and type MEM. This instance of MEM reports 300K of conventional memory free - seems reasonable to me seeing as TP is running!

I open up another DOS Window just to be sure and type MEM and sure enough, I have 545K free.

If I am reading this correctly, MEM is only any good for reporting the memory usage for that particular DOS shell.

Jon