BUG: No Resources Causes Failed to Open Graphics Server Error (80780)

SYMPTOMS

With the Visual Basic programming environment (VB.EXE) running and with very low available Windows resources (0 to 1 percent), attempting to load the GRAPH.VBX Visual Basic custom control generates these misleading messages:

Failed to open Graphics Server.
GSW.EXE must be available via the DOS path.

followed by another error message:

Can't load the custom control DLL: "C:\VB\GRAPH.VBX"

RESOLUTION

These messages incorrectly imply that the problem is that GSW.EXE is not in the MS-DOS path, when in fact the custom control could not load because of a lack of Windows resources (memory).

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the GRAPH.VBX custom control provided with the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

A prerequisite to re-create this problem is to deplete Windows system resources until the Program Manager Help About dialog box reports 1 percent or less resources available. To verify the level of resources available, from the Program Manager Help menu, choose About.

One way to deplete Windows resources is to launch as many sessions of NOTEPAD.EXE as possible before getting an error message (start Visual Basic before all of the Notepad sessions).

Steps to Reproduce Problem

With 1 percent or less resources available, the following procedure will generate the above error messages:

From the File menu, choose New Project. Form1 is created by default.
From the File menu, choose Add File, and select the GRAPH.VBX custom control.