I just tried to install QEMM on the computer, but it only registers only about 256MB RAM, and worse yet, UMBs register 0k, but more Conventional memory is free, and the programs loaded to UMBs are not in Conventional memory but are running properly. Where's the phantom memory? Should I publish the new config.sys and mem/c output files?

"i=b000-b7ff" means 32 KB, so it seems to work as requested

Try "devicehigh=c:\windows\emm386.exe noems", and see how much UMB you get...

I find this funny, as, when I installed QEMM and optimized my configuration, it seemed to work, but when I used MEM, it reports no UMBs, but the free Conventional memory is right. Also, MEM doesn't report the programs that are in Upper memory, but they must be there, as they seem to be working properly. I attached the new memory output (in debug mode) and the config files.

BTW, QEMM only reports 256MB memory, but my system has about 1GB memory. Will this affect Windows?

Bad news: I have to revert back to HIMEM/EMM386, as Windows is crashing with an error with the QEMM setup. 🙁 The old setup files are *.qdk, right? This still leaves the funny memory report. I can use the NOEMS switch, but I have a few games that use EMS. I will try it anyway.

NOEMS gives much more memory as expected, but I want EMS for some old games. I am aware of UMBPCI, but I don't think it would work on my system. 🙁 Are there any other DOS memory managers online that are compatible with Win98SE?

Try also "ram" instead of "noems", but without including any particular address range.
Especially including B000-B7FF is risky, as it may conflict with the graphics card.

I think I did try RAM. I am going to try QEMM again, as the Windows version popped up when I rebooted Windows.

It did it again, but rebooting made QEMM restore my system files. I'd better uninstall QEMM97 before continuing.

You don't need and shouldn't load that crap when booting Windows. If for some poor reason (crappy hardware) you want to play DOS games in the 9x command prompt then just set noemmdriver=off in system.ini

You're right, but I still want EMS and DOSKEY for DOS work in Windows.

I'm getting 600k Conventional memory in a DOS window under Windows, so I can kill the mouse driver and install an ANSI driver. I will also apply NOEMS and the change to system.ini. Thanks. 😀

I didn't find the setting. I assume I have to add it. Under which section should I add it? BTW, I want to do some DOS work, i.e. for games, emulators and programming. Is there another way to get more memory for DOS programs?

What are your system specs?

For a lot of systems, you should be able to get about 620k conventional and at least 80k UMBs.

The best way to optimize it is to get a program that can show you the exact memory map below 1MB and you can add the ranges that aren't used by anything for UMBs.

Microsoft MSD will work fine for this.

Then you can mess with loading stuff in the order in which they will best fit into the UMB blocks.

There should also be an option in Windows 98 to not try to load Windows by default.

That should give you an easier time configuring for DOS and you won't have to F8 on every boot.

You can then setup up menus for config.sys and autoex c.bat so you can easily run different configurations based on what programs you want to run and what drivers you need to load.

The video card also matters, later ones tend to have a larger BIOS size (which starts at C000) which gives less space for UMB and/or the EMS page frame.

I have a Pentium 4 processor and about 1GB memory. Gmlb256, I think you're right about my video card, because it's a pretty new computer. Cyclone3d: I set MSDOS.SYS's BootGUI setting to 0, so I'm currently booting to DOS by default. I've been using MEM to display the memory map. I'd better try MSD later today. If I need a DOS short-cut/configuration, I can use QEMM, as it gives me more memory. It crashes when I load Windows, so I can't use it on a Windows setup. 🙁

I just looked at the output of MEM/D and found that, other than the monochrome video buffer, I only have 4k of Upper memory at CF00. I also tried MSD from the DOS prompt, and apparently, I don't have it. Where can I get it? BTW, I still have QEMM on my machine, and the Windows drivers seem to work. I was told here that QEMM has a program called MANIFEST. Will it display the Upper memory map the way you specify?

I just tried MANIFEST, and, indeed, it gave me a map of used memory. I found that the section of memory from E000 to EFFF is unused. How did EMM386 miss that? I will include it now. BTW, I wanted to take a snapshot of the MANIFEST screen. I believe I have a few hiding somewhere in a very large downloads folder on my Win11/64 computer. Let me try to find Video Thief again.

I couldn't find Video Thief. 🙁 I'm going to try the include now. 😀