Abstract: A system uses a common error processing process within a computer system wherein other processes that detect errors send an error message to the common process and the common process is used to display all error messages, and display the help file. The common error process detects whether the system is a distributed application running on multiple computer systems, and if this is so, the common error process sends any error messages to other computers within the distributed network, so that the error messages are displayed on all computers when one computer has an error. The system reserves an amount of memory when it is started, and keeps this memory reserved throughout operation of the system. If an out of memory error occurs in a process, the reserved memory is released, to provide sufficient memory for building an error message.