As per the description for this forum --"Getting old DOS games working on modern hardware." Ask in Marvin.

You have to manually edit IO.SYS. There is no other way.

People do this routinely because Windows 9x will not boot into Safe Mode with more than 512 MB of RAM installed unless something is done to stop HIMEM.SYS from loading – usually by replacing it with HIMEMX.

darry wrote on 2020-04-25, 22:28:

EDIT : not many use cases for this other than running your own himem replacement and certain games with their own memory manager .

Have you ever encountered something you've actually wanted to run that was incompatible with HIMEM? That seems improbable.

collector wrote on 2020-04-25, 23:16:

As per the description for this forum --"Getting old DOS games working on modern hardware." Ask in Marvin.

Sorry about that. Could an admin please move this to Marvin Software ?

Jorpho wrote on 2020-04-25, 23:48:

You have to manually edit IO.SYS. There is no other way. […]
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You have to manually edit IO.SYS. There is no other way.

People do this routinely because Windows 9x will not boot into Safe Mode with more than 512 MB of RAM installed unless something is done to stop HIMEM.SYS from loading – usually by replacing it with HIMEMX.

darry wrote on 2020-04-25, 22:28:

EDIT : not many use cases for this other than running your own himem replacement and certain games with their own memory manager .

Have you ever encountered something you've actually wanted to run that was incompatible with HIMEM? That seems improbable.

I sort of imagined patching would be required . You wouldn't happen to have some info about how to go about doing that .
I had no specific scenario in mind except trying something other than himem.sys . No specific purpose for that either .

no you do not have to edit IO.SYS

add:
DOS=NOAUTO
to your config.sys

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-04-26, 01:32:

no you do not have to edit IO.SYS […]
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no you do not have to edit IO.SYS

add:
DOS=NOAUTO
to your config.sys

Thank you.

I imagine I can append to existing values like so :
DOS=HIGH,UMB,NOAUTO

darry wrote on 2020-04-26, 01:49:

Thank you. […]
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maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-04-26, 01:32:

no you do not have to edit IO.SYS […]
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no you do not have to edit IO.SYS

add:
DOS=NOAUTO
to your config.sys

Thank you.

I imagine I can append to existing values like so :
DOS=HIGH,UMB,NOAUTO

yep

darry wrote on 2020-04-26, 00:00:

You wouldn't happen to have some info about how to go about doing that .

A google search for "himemx io.sys" (no quotes) turns up lots of hits. There is even a patcher linked at https://msfn.org/board/topic/109574-help-i-ne … &comment=750909 , but it is easy enough to do with a hex editor.

add:
DOS=NOAUTO
to your config.sys

According to https://madsenworld.dk/con_auto/index-uk.htm , that doesn't stop himem.sys from loading; that just stops DOS from trying to load drivers into high memory.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-04-26, 03:39:

A google search for "himemx io.sys" (no quotes) turns up lots of hits. There is even a patcher linked at https://msfn.org/board […]
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darry wrote on 2020-04-26, 00:00:

You wouldn't happen to have some info about how to go about doing that .

A google search for "himemx io.sys" (no quotes) turns up lots of hits. There is even a patcher linked at https://msfn.org/board/topic/109574-help-i-ne … &comment=750909 , but it is easy enough to do with a hex editor.

add:
DOS=NOAUTO
to your config.sys

According to https://madsenworld.dk/con_auto/index-uk.htm , that doesn't stop himem.sys from loading; that just stops DOS from trying to load drivers into high memory.

My google-fu must have failed me (though I was not searching for himemx). I will try the noauto option first and patch if necessary .
Thank you

noauto works as expected (himem.sys does not load, DOS loads entirely in conventional memory) .

I'm not about to try, but maybe patching IO.SYS is only required for Windows ME .

Moved to Marvin -> Software.

darry wrote on 2020-04-26, 04:27:

noauto works as expected (himem.sys does not load, DOS loads entirely in conventional memory) .

of course it does 😀

Is that in the official documentation somewhere? This does not seem to be a widely-recognized use of "noauto".

I found http://www.manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/msdos7/dos.htm, which suggests that without "noauto", each of Himem.sys, Ifshlp.sys, Dblbuff.sys, and Setver.exe are loaded automatically, but I think the word "high" is missing from that sentence.

It's not well documented because it's only an issue with MDSOS 7+ I guess. Before Win9x there was no "auto."

I don't understand what you are saying about "high" being missing from the sentence. The documentation in that link is 100% accurate as far as I can tell.

I don't understand what you are saying about "high" being missing from the sentence. The documentation in that link is 100% accurate as far as I can tell.

I never knew setver loads automatically on all systems unless noauto is specified.