You did not enable GEMMIS which is required for Windows 3.x to run while EMM386 is loaded.

I remember in MEMMAKER there's an option regarding Windows which enables GEMMIS by adding something like WIN=D000-D7FF to EMM386.EXE's arguments. (can't remember the exact reserved range however)

Note that doing so will reduce your available upper memory, so if you are tight on upper memory you should make a separate startup menu config. I think SMARTDRV, MSCDEX and MOUSE in AUTOEXEC are big memory eaters (for which there are alternatives that have much less memory footprints but not as compatible). Not sure about your CD drivers, however.

Finally hooked the machine up again cause I got the rest of the cards I wanted to put into it. Unsure what the mem range it wants, but the strange part is memmaker summarizes that it has reserved no memory for Windows which seems to match what you're saying.

I am unsure why it's having trouble allocating that memory. Too many drivers?

ioncannon wrote on 2023-07-22, 14:46:

Finally hooked the machine up again cause I got the rest of the cards I wanted to put into it. Unsure what the mem range it wants, but the strange part is memmaker summarizes that it has reserved no memory for Windows which seems to match what you're saying.

I am unsure why it's having trouble allocating that memory. Too many drivers?

Did you actually check the option to enable Windows support in MEMMAKER? Normally MEMMAKER would try to reserve these memory area before tweaking your drivers to load high.

If you have any expansion card that has its own option ROM enabled (which you would see during POST, before DOS boots), you'll end up with less UMB available, which may in turn cause MEMMAKER to be unable to really enable the option as it cannot find a suitable upper memory area for the purpose.

Oops, I had not; just read that the arguments if omitted will allocat 0 bytes. Why the heck does it ask for the Windows installation then? 🤣.

What is a good size? From the example configs a lot of people post... I haven't seen any `WIN` params, unless people just don't used Windows 3.1? I don't recall having to ever do this on my original Pentium computer.

This is a Compaq Prolinea, and while there is no extra card with it's own ROM; the system does have an on-board ET4000 chip; which appears under the BIOS trademark, so you may be right?

Image attached (taken from another post, I don't have any error).

Think I found the issue. A driver windows needs defined was not being loaded to allow for the old MDA memory location (B000) from being used. Adding the driver in the DOS folder into system.ini fixed it.

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.msdos.misc/c/W9HE5GlD2kw

ioncannon wrote on 2023-07-22, 16:37:

Oops, I had not; just read that the arguments if omitted will allocat 0 bytes. Why the heck does it ask for the Windows installation then? 🤣.

What is a good size? From the example configs a lot of people post... I haven't seen any `WIN` params, unless people just don't used Windows 3.1? I don't recall having to ever do this on my original Pentium computer.

If that fixed it, so your issue was more about having included B000-B7FF, but your driver does not really use that region. I never knew it could be solved by this. Back then I'd avoid including B000-B7FF if I wanted to use Windows.

The WIN part was required for my system back then, if I want to boot to Windows while keeping EMM386 active and well-behaved. Maybe the WIN part is not really a requirement but recommended for some Windows functionality...