Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-04-05, 13:00:

dr_st wrote on 2024-04-05, 12:22:

I used to believe you only need a single config, and all those menus are redundant. That's because I got 620K free RAM with XMS, […]
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I used to believe you only need a single config, and all those menus are redundant. That's because I got 620K free RAM with XMS, EMS and all TSRs I wanted, in a single config.

However, as was mentioned here, I later learned that a lot of success with UMBs and EMS depends on your system - chipset, peripherals etc. Sound cards can get finicky, a handful of games may require real mode, etc.
If you have a simple SS7 setup with a well-behaved sound card that needs no complex TSRs, your single config may work 98% of the time, and for the couple of games that it won't work for - reboot and just press F5 may be sufficient. Or do the step-by-step confirmation.

However, if you frequently switch between a couple of games that need different configs, or have several sound devices that require "special treatment", or something like that, then a boot menu is convenient. So perhaps Phil's config is too bloated for most situations if you use it "as is", but as a template - it is good.

Uhm don't you need at least 3 configurations? Like: plain real mode, xms and ems? You can have both at the same time?
The cd drivers are maybe a bit redundant but when I use a test machine I never use a cd drive so...

I vote for 2 configurations: 1) Real mode including XMS
2) EMS.
When you manage to get UMB drivers running config 1) you have a lot of free memory (no need to fool around with memmaker and stuff) and this config is fitting nearly for everything you run under DOS. For some special software that needs EMS you can take config 2.

In the past I used a software that needed a really blank config.sys to run in the fastest mode. It was chess genius 3 as far as I remember. To run it with the parameter /x, not even himem.sys was allowed. But that is really a rare exception.

See also my sample config for the SIS471 chipset, there I have 3 configs, the third is to start Win98SE.

I guess it depends on how you use the system. I don't like menu clutter, and when I want to play a game I commit to it. So if said game requires a certain config/autoexec, I just go ahead and REM lines from my "do it all" default config. After a few days when I'm done with the game, I revert my changes back in the default config.

wbahnassi: if you have MS-DOS 6.xx, try pressing F8 before the OS loads and selecting step-by-step confirmation. That way, you can skip the drivers you want to disable. This way, you can skip the whole editing of the config files.