call-process having problems with a big total length of arguments under Windows

[Mathias Dahl <mathias.dahl@gmail.com>]

Under GNU/Linux I can do this (calling ping with an 10000 long argument list):

(apply 'call-process
       (append (list
                "ping"
                nil t nil)
               (make-list 10000 "0123456789")))

(of course, ping complains about the syntax, but that is another
matter, ping is just an example of a command that exists on both
platforms where I test)

On Windows (Windows 7, 64 bit) this works in a quite recent Emacs
(24.1.50.1 from last summer):

(apply 'call-process
       (append (list
                "ping"
                nil t nil)
               (make-list 2000 "0123456789")))

But this does not (2000 is changed to 3000):

(apply 'call-process
       (append (list
                "ping"
                nil t nil)
               (make-list 3000 "0123456789")))

I get (file-error "Spawning child process" "exec format error") when I
reach a certain amount of arguments. I can make it fail at fewer
arguments if I make the length of each argument longer.

What sets the limit here? Is there a bug in Emacs on Windows or is it
a limitation of the OS? Is there is a known limitation in the total
length of all parameters?

Thanks!

/Mathias