Question: When I start Paradox, I receive a BDE Initialization Error (Insufficient Shared Memory Available). How do I fix this so I can run Paradox?

Answer: This is a rare error message, one that generally appears in very specific circumstances. For example, we've seen it when running an older version of Paradox under a newer version of Windows (e.g. Paradox 7.32 under Windows XP) and after configuring application compatibility properties for Paradox. In this case, the error stemmed from choosing the wrong operating system for the application compatibility properties.

In this case, we were running Paradox 7.32 under Windows XP. When we chose either Windows 95 or Windows 98/ME as the target operating system, we received this error. When we changed the target operating system to Windows NT 4.0, we were able to run Paradox without problems. If your situation is similar, you should experiment with different target operating systems in the Compatiblity panel of the Paradox properties. For more information, please see Problem: Buttons Don't Display.

This error can also appear after trying to configure BDE to better utilize available memory. For best results in this situation, try the steps suggested here.