Hi everyone.
Question. On a visit to speedguide.net, i came across a tweak to see if devices load into hi or lo memory. The following was the test result.
Im running ME(yeuch) but nevertheless how do i sort this out. Details please. Im not that conversant with the registry although i have dabbled quite a bit. And trashed a few times. You learn from mistakes.

tks



Modules using memory below 1 MB:

Name Total Conventional Upper Memory
-------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
MSDOS 46,016 (45K) 46,016 (45K) 0 (0K)
VMM32 3,136 (3K) 3,136 (3K) 0 (0K)
COMMAND 7,280 (7K) 7,280 (7K) 0 (0K)
DOSKEY 4,688 (5K) 4,688 (5K) 0 (0K)
Free 585,792 (572K) 585,792 (572K) 0 (0K)

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total Used Free
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Conventional 647,168 61,376 585,792
Upper 0 0 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS) 67,107,840 ? 99,422,208
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Total memory 67,755,008 ? 100,008,000

Total under 1 MB 647,168 61,376 585,792

Ant

please provide some more info. what was the test? what are you trying to accomplish?

Happy computing!

Alex "crazygerman" Byron
Webmaster, Editor-in-Chief
PC911

Sure. cut and paste from speedguide.


Windows98 Setup and EMM386

During setup Win98 will remove some drivers from your Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files. Unfortunately it removes EMM386 for Win98's first time use so it can detect hardware w/out problems but forgets to "un-REM it". Make sure you are using EMM386 and have optimal options set. You can still use memmaker for Win98. Also, make sure you aren't using any old dos TSRs like DosKey or other unnecessary files. Face it, you got Win98 not Dos98 you rarely use dos if ever and it's not as important as a faster Win98 is.

Windows 98 loads EMM386, but there are some command line switches that can improve your system's performance. For example, if you have "EMM386.EXE ram" or "EMM386.EXE noems" in your Config.sys file, it will enable you to load the drivers after that in the Upper Memory block, instead of Conventional Memory. To load devices in UMB, use devicehigh in Config.sys, and lh (loadhigh) in Autoexec.bat. "DOS=UMB, HIGH" in your Config.sys will free up Conventional Memory as well. You can type "mem /c/p" in DOS Prompt, to see what's loaded into memory, and where.

Note: It is important to follow some rules when editing your Config.sys. The first line should load Himem.sys, the second EMM386.exe, and any other drivers should be after those two.

If you still use BUFFERS - FCBS - LASTDRIVE - STACKS commands in your Config.sys file, make sure that you are using the BUFFERSHIGH - FCBSHIGH - LASTDRIVEHIGH - STACKSHIGH commands, available in Windows 95, to free more conventional memory

Ant

You do not need an autoexec.bat, nor a config.sys file at all to run W9X.

Shelly

What about the upper and lower memory areas. Does this matter. Will it in fact improve if upper is used?

Ant

Upper and lower memory was an issue in dos days. Certain important functions could only run in lower memory (which was very limited) so a great deal of effort was made to run things in upper memory that could run in upper memory to keep lower available for processes that absolutely needed it. If you didn't run out of lower memory, there was no speed advantage either way.

Running WinME, a dos process will run in a dos virtual machine that is in the system arena area of your memory address space. You're running in protected mode and there is no involvement of upper or lower memory at all. It is a non issue.

... and furthermore, WinME won't even process the commands if you add them to autoexec.bat and config.sys which are only there to provide information for backwards compatibility with old programs that require it.

Also, if you search around you'll find plenty of geniuses that tell you to "get this patch to add the DOS back to WinME!". Well, just don't, because it's just at the expense of system startup time and it still won't be a fully functional DOS environment anyway, however you will cause it to go back to the old style of Windows boot, where a real mode session is prepared first and autoexec.bat and config.sys are processed. Waste of time.

Like Steve said, the statistics you are interested in are a non-issue anymore.

Grogan

What Grogan just said...All of that is a holdover from the DOS days and win3.1 stuff when there were dos games and different utilities that ran in dos and these were loaded into memory and used from there. not applicable any longer....
We all learned to load stuff into upper memory back then to leave room for other things that ran in dos.....

Thanks to all who replied.

Ill stick to this forums tips from now on!!!

Ant

>You do not need an autoexec.bat, nor a config.sys file at
>all to run W9X.

Not much "Friendly Expert Computer Help" in that statement.

Your unrestricted blanket statement ("at all") is just plain wrong.

Non-PnP devices or expansion cards often require a real-mode driver loaded by the config.sys file.
They may also need an autoexec.bat file to run a program like MSCDEX at startup.

There are numerous well-documented instances when one or both files may be required:

1. with unsupported SCSI adapters that require a real-mode driver
MSKB Article Q133285

2. with CD-ROM drives that must use real-mode drivers
MSKB Article Q131499

3. with DOS programs that require exclusive use of all resources
MSKB Article Q134400

4. with DOS programs that run in Windows and require more conventional memory
MSKB Article Q134399

5. with Novell's NetWare Asynchronous System Interface
MSKB Article Q125425

6. with hardware conflicts that cause stack overflow errors
MSKB Article Q145799

7. with the game Tornado
MSKB Article Q132801

8. with a Pioneer DR-UA124X CD-ROM drive
MSKB Article Q188294

Very true, the blanket statement is not literally correct. In Windows 95, and Windows 98 it is possible, desirable and even necessary to load real mode drivers at times, or specify commands or environment variables as workarounds for some erronious behaviour of hardware or software. However, for the majority the statement that was made does hold water and certainly does within the context of this thread. Also note, that where WinME is specified as applicable in those articles you quoted, it's excluded for instructions pertaining to autoexec.bat and config.sys.

It was certainly nothing that should have provoked a confrontational response here.

Grogan

Windows ME do not pay any attention to Autoexec.bat or Config.sys except for changes in the environment variables, any other value is ignored either if it is a real mode driver or anything else affecting the OS. Windows Me goes as far as not even reading those files during boot up changes you make to autoexec.bat are only read during shutdown to check if there are changes in the environment variables (PATH, SET etc)