Batch to check for TOTAL RAM

[jdogherman]

Does anyone know of a way to check for the total installed ram in a batch file.

I need to make a check for total installed memory before running a command.

I know about the mem command but I really dont know how to parse the output and then compair to another string.

Thank you,

Justin

[devcom]

try somethink like this:

Code: [Select]

wmic memorychip get /VALUE |findstr "Capacity"and notice that the Capacity is in kb

[jdogherman]

when I do that it it states:

memorychip - Alias not found.

also would this work in dos?

I want to use this before running a ghost command and load an image. So this would need to have minimal software and minimal backbone.

Thanks

[devcom]

sorry i dont know it will work in DOS i used it on Vista and XP

[jdogherman]

the real problem I have is I need to parse the output of mem.exe for the memory level using batch commands.

Any ideas would be very helpful

[Dias de verano]

a combination of FIND and a FOR loop with an appropriate "tokens=" entry should do it. An interesting little project for you. I wish you good luck.

[jdogherman]

Yeah its just I really having a hard time understanding the useing them to get what I am looking for.

I was hoping that someone might have done a project like this and would be willing to help me.

[jdogherman]

Well so far I have
mem>output.txt

that leaves me with:


    655360 bytes total conventional memory
    655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
    583344 largest executable program size

   1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
         0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
    941056 bytes available XMS memory
           MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area


But how can i eliminate everything but

1048576

and then compare that to a constant to steer the flow of the batch?

[Dias de verano]

The trouble is...

Mem is an MS-DOS program. It seems clear from the output you posted that you were running Win2K/XP/Vista command prompt (which is not MS-DOS).

The practical consequences of this are that, to cut a long story short, you are not seeing the total RAM installed, you are seeing the amount of contiguous extended memory which Windows has allocated to an MS-DOS virtual machine, which is a standard amount, namely 1 megabyte. That is what 1048576 bytes is. Hadn't you noticed that?

If you are running a batch file under Win2K/XP/Vista, you might as well not bother checking, because the answer is always going to be 1048576 bytes.

if you want to know the total amount of physical RAM installed on the motherboard (why?) you will have to use another command, such as systeminfo.

If you are using genuine MS-DOS then a complete rethink will be necessary. You cannot use NT command prompt techniques in MS-DOS. You need to state what OS you intend using.

[jdogherman]

alright I feel very dumb.

My problem is I need to find the total amount of RAM before I run a command to ghost a system

The problem is I need the batch to NOT run the ghost command if the system has below a certain amount of RAM installed.

This would be in a batch file.

The only thing I dont know how to do is how to make the value of RAM a varable that I can compare.

[Dias de verano]

OK I'm with you now!  I have done a bit of Ghosting so i will have a look at some stuff and get back to you.

By the way, what version of Ghost are you running? The DOS executable ghost.exe needs very little memory by today's standards. I am curious about why you need to do this.

[jdogherman]

its not actually about the ghost software its about the image and the image os needed 512 Mb of RAM.

the end users are very dumb and we need a way to stop them from using a recovery disc that will just waste time.

[GuruGary]

Does Ghost run in a true DOS environment, or command prompt under Windows?  It looks like you are probably running GHOST32.EXE in a command prompt under Windows.  If this is the case, you can try:

Code: [Select]

@echo off
setlocal
for /f "tokens=2* delims=:" %%a in ('systeminfo ^| findstr /I /C:"Total Physical Memory"') do set TotalRAM=%%a
echo Total RAM is: %TotalRam%


[Dias de verano]

Yes, I was thinking along those lines, but I think what happened was that jdogherman had been trying out the mem command under a windows environment, but the situation he (or she) envisages is the use of a recovery disk to deploy a Ghost image under MS-DOS. However I believe that later versions of Ghost (after 9) can use a 32 bit Windows PE environment, so clarification from jdogherman would be useful.

I wrote a Qbasic program which can parse the output of mem /d in a pure MS-DOS environment and find the total RAM installed, but it depends on mem writing a text file, which of course bootable CD's don't allow, and a RAM disk would probably mess with EMS and stall Ghost.exe.

[jdogherman]

yeah this would be on a ghost disc created and then ran. so not under the win32 enviroment.

I am using Ghost ver. 8.

I wound't know how it would act in a ram disc but it would at least get me that much closer to working with it.

If yo have any other ideas le me know thanks,

Justin