Well, 512 MB of RAM would have been unheard of in the days when people were running Windows 3.1. Maybe that's causing a problem one way or another.

You can experiment with how the installer reacts to lower amounts of RAM by using HIMEMX in your config.sys (note that there is no such thing as config.app) as a substitute for HIMEM, as HIMEMX has a switch to control the amount of RAM Windows will use.

If all else fails you might be better off installing Windows 3.x in DOSBox and running your compiler from there.

there was a utility that would fix your system files; wind 98 will detect properly even 1 gig of memory

I agree with mrau and Jorpho. If you face memory problems, try to reduce memory first or tweak the system files.
Tip: Some BIOSes also allow the amount of VGA shared-memory to be set (which reduces main RAM).
Second tip: Both Windows 3.1 and 98 do include sysedit, which gives easy access to win.ini, system.ini, autoexec.bat and config.sys. :)
Third tip: Run Windows 3.1 on top of Windows 9x. It can be done by running standard mode via krnl386 (no typo; krnl286 is for 286 machines). *link*

Jorpho wrote:

Well, 512 MB of RAM would have been unheard of in the days when people were running Windows 3.1. Maybe that's causing a problem one way or another.

You can experiment with how the installer reacts to lower amounts of RAM by using HIMEMX in your config.sys (note that there is no such thing as config.app) as a substitute for HIMEM, as HIMEMX has a switch to control the amount of RAM Windows will use.

If all else fails you might be better off installing Windows 3.x in DOSBox and running your compiler from there.

Thanks for the replies!

I understand it's way more ram than was used in the time period, but I would expect that to just cause issues with the compiler itself running instead it caused a permanent change to the amount of usable ram in my OS. It installed with no complaints and compiled a quick test program I wrote, only issue it caused is once I rebooted the OS, it takes 20 minutes to get to the desktop now and control panel shows 14mb. All was well before I installed the compiler.

There was definitely a C:\config.app and C:\config.old placed there, not sure if the compiler installation did that but replacing it did nothing of use. EDIT: I realized config.sys is hidden and config.old a backup made by the installer.

I will make backups of these and then compare them to what they look like after the compiler is reinstalled if the problem gets reproduced. It's likely that it screwed up this file.

mrau wrote:

there was a utility that would fix your system files; wind 98 will detect properly even 1 gig of memory

If all else fails I'll try running that and see what happens, I didn't think of it because the OS was originally working fine.

Jo22 wrote:

I agree with mrau and Jorpho. If you face memory problems, try to reduce memory first or tweak the system files. Tip: Some BIOSe […]
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I agree with mrau and Jorpho. If you face memory problems, try to reduce memory first or tweak the system files.
Tip: Some BIOSes also allow the amount of VGA shared-memory to be set (which reduces main RAM).
Second tip: Both Windows 3.1 and 98 do include sysedit, which gives easy access to win.ini, system.ini, autoexec.bat and config.sys. 😀
Third tip: Run Windows 3.1 on top of Windows 9x. It can be done by running standard mode via krnl386 (no typo; krnl286 is for 286 machines). *link*

Again the system was running perfectly fine with 512MB ram detected by the OS, nice and snappy, no shared memory in the bios and no issues. The issue happened with the installation of the compiler. Or are you guys saying that if I install it with reduced memory in the first place it may not cause the issue? I can try that out. I have to look up the himemx flags, boy I wish I had that old dos bible on hand, I should check if they have it on some thrift bookstores 😎

Didn't know about sysedit either. I should have waited before I reformatted but I got angry 🤣

If all else fails I'll go with the 3.1 on top of 9x idea. I tried to set up dual boot dos 6.22 and 98 as I used to back in the day but I keep getting "This version of setup is designed for computers that do not yet have an operating system" on my only remaining 98 install disk, so going back to win98 alone now. I'll post back with what happens when I install the compiler again before and after

I will back up win.ini, system.ini, autoexec.bat and config.sys before running the installer. I know it made changes to at least the autoexec file (by completely replacing it)

So after installing windows (this time it seems to be on the FAT16 partition DOS created before I installed it) control panel - system showed 512 MB RAM. After installing the compiler it dropped down to 510MB.. 🤣. I can live with that as long as everything works, the system still reboots and is actually usable.

I had it display the changes it made to the files, here's what I get:

Aside from these minor additions I'm not sure what else it would possibly be messing with in the system. I'm now running fat32 converter to get the rest of my disk and to see if it still remains 510MB. Odd bug I guess.

edit: still 510MB after conversion.. going to check out that win98 patch now, or maybe try out the unofficial sp3

I'm not sure I understand. Is it properly working now?

It's a bit strange that the compiler comes with its own version of SMARTDRV. It's possible that version is so old that it's incompatible with Win98SE for one reason or another. You can try getting rid of the lines in both your autoexec.bat and config.sys that refer to SMARTDRV and see if that makes a difference.

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Or are you guys saying that if I install it with reduced memory in the first place it may not cause the issue? I can try that out.

That is what I was thinking, yes. It would be odd if that fixed the issue, but then it seems to be an odd issue.

I have to look up the himemx flags, boy I wish I had that old dos bible on hand, I should check if they have it on some thrift bookstores

HIMEMX is a comparatively modern invention and would be unlikely to be documented in print.

Sorry for my poorly worded updates, I'm a bit under the weather today and my head is in the deep recesses of fuzzy land if you know what I mean.

It was working ok the second time around with windows now using 510 out of 512MB instead of 14 like last time.

EDIT: Sure enough, I removed the SMARTDRV lines as you mentioned and boom, control panel now shows 512 mb. I'm totally unaware of what SMARTDRV.EXE does but that was the problem. I just compiled a simple C program using the CL compiler and it worked out, so I would say that resolves the issue 😀 Thank you very much

I now would like to extend the C partition out to 20 GB now as this install started on FAT16, any freely available software still hanging around I can do this with or should I just reformat again while the system is still pretty base

unofficial SP3 should be applied if you have >256MB

smartdrv is a disk caching utility. I remember it causing issues back in the day. I tended to avoid it.

kenrouholo wrote:

unofficial SP3 should be applied if you have >256MB

smartdrv is a disk caching utility. I remember it causing issues back in the day. I tended to avoid it.

Thanks, I have since installed SP3.

Out of curiosity, any documentation in digital form about C/C++ 7.0 or visual C 1.0 floating around? I ordered a book from a thrift store but it'll be a week or two before I get my hands on it