MSD is located in TOOLS\OLDMSDOS directory on the Windows 98 SE CD-ROM.

I thank you, but QEMM's MANIFEST gave me what I wanted. I added the include, and the computer stopped booting, but the keyboard still worked: ESC killed the startup screen, and CTRL+ALT+DEL rebooted. I added the /V switch, and the computer displayed "EMM386 Active" just before stopping. The same thing happened with QEMM on an old Win98SE PC. 🙁 I will try shortening the latest include, but it will cost me 32k of UMB RAM.

It worked! 😀 I decreased the extra memory block size, and now the computer boots successfully. I added back 16k and now have 78k UMB. I thank all of you.

I got DOS to work but not Windows: Windows gives me an Out of Memory error. It works when I exclude the range, though.

I'm attaching the config files.

I have to go without the extra memory, as I can't get it to work otherwise. 🙁

Uhh...I'm not at my mother's house right now, but, the next time I'm there, are there any WIn98-compatible USB drivers that can give me more UMBs? I honestly don't know why using more memory for UMBs would cause an out of memory error while booting Windows. I tried QEMM, but, as soon as Windows starts loading, the system crashes.

I recently downloaded JEMM. Is it compatible with Win98SE? If I need a DOS setup, I can use QEMM to handle memory for it. How do I use QEMM to optimize a configuration stored in a so-called DOS shortcut?

I'm wondering if maybe the settings in MSDOS.SYS for loading of DriveSpace were enabled when booting Windows at the time. I'm using DriveSpace to access a lot of floppies and Zip disks from an older Win98SE system but don't need the DOS drivers while in Windows mode. I'd better double-check the next time I'm at my mother's house.

I'm at my mother's house right now, and my Win98 computer there is not starting up properly: it's still displaying the error message. I tried to use step-by-step confirmation mode and excluded some config.sys and autoexec.bat drivers and still get the error. I had the line "i=e000-e7ff" in the emm386.exe line. I disabled it. Same thing. I disabled DriveSpace in msdos.sys. Again. I attached the config files.

BTW, the error occurs while loading V86MMGR.

Bypassing the emm386.exe line works, but I really want EMS memory for some DOS games.

I just installed JEMM and, when starting Windows, I get an Exception 0D error immediately. 🙁 I'm going to fiddle with its settings.

Harry Potter wrote on 2023-04-29, 23:37:

I'm attaching the config files.

These settings aren't exactly correct, I believe.
EMM386 can't use devicehigh, IFSHLP.SYS should never be loaded high, C:\WINDOWS; must be in path, too.

Then, the environment variables are too much for the default setting, I believe (too much SETs).
COMMAND.COM /P /E:2048 for the SHELL line should added.

Then there's CuteMouse. It doesn't go too well with Windows.
You can try one of these, they're not too big:
Re: CuteMouse not working properly
Re: How do you get a serial mouse working

All in all, my best bet would be QEMM 9, which says is Windows 95 compatible.
You can try to add the second include line from EMM386 to QEMM, maybe.

As a last resort, you can try getting a copy of "Multimedia Cloaking" by Helix Software.
It solved the short on memory issue by loading some specialized drivers beyong 1MB (mouse, cdrom etc).

That way, you don't need UMBs or stripped-down drivers.
It's a bit like black magic, I must say. Lots of protected mode stuff going on.
But very fascinating, too. Definitely worth a try! 🙂

Some software products like mice drivers do already have Cloaking support built-in.
Not sure how well the technology works with Windows, though.

More information : Re: Tiny mouse driver ?

Good luck! 🙂🤞

I thank you. I will try the technique with EMM386 now.

I did everything you told me to do except I disabled the mouse driver and got the same result. 🙁

Harry Potter wrote on 2023-04-29, 18:49:

Hi! I am currently hooking up DOS mode on a new Win98SE minitower and just got HIMEM and EMM386 working. However, I am getting only 31k UMB RAM. 🙁 I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. I plan to upgrade to QEMM soon but for now want to work with HIMEM and EMM386. I attached a dump from the mem/c command and the config.sys file as I have them now.

I read this thread, but honestly spoken I do not understand what you are doing.
You are optimizing the "restart windows to ms-dos" mode?

If this is the case, I would suggest: Don't do it like that.

Windows 98SE has a very nice DOS builtin (7.1), just start it directly. When doing so, so can easily optimize also the free dos memory, start it with EMS or without. Whatever you want.

So you just stop windows from booting automatically and implement a menu, I use that at the moment for my 486 system:
DOS conventional memory for ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4

Umm...you're right. I should just do that. In fact, I know exactly how to do that. However, I have DriveSpace installed in Windows mode but disabled it for DOS mode in MSDOS.SYS. If I want to use a DOS setup, how do I temporarily enable it just for the DOS setup without editing MSDOS.SYS twice?

Harry Potter wrote on 2023-05-20, 18:08:

Umm...you're right. I should just do that. In fact, I know exactly how to do that. However, I have DriveSpace installed in Windows mode but disabled it for DOS mode in MSDOS.SYS. If I want to use a DOS setup, how do I temporarily enable it just for the DOS setup without editing MSDOS.SYS twice?

I don't know about drivespace. Windows 98 loads (so when you write nothing in config.sys and have an unmodified msdos.sys) himem.sys, dblbuff.sys and ifshlp.sys.
Is drive space speeding up your windows98se?

CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-05-20, 17:52:

I read this thread, but honestly spoken I do not understand what you are doing. You are optimizing the "restart windows to ms-do […]
Show full quote

Harry Potter wrote on 2023-04-29, 18:49:

Hi! I am currently hooking up DOS mode on a new Win98SE minitower and just got HIMEM and EMM386 working. However, I am getting only 31k UMB RAM. 🙁 I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. I plan to upgrade to QEMM soon but for now want to work with HIMEM and EMM386. I attached a dump from the mem/c command and the config.sys file as I have them now.

I read this thread, but honestly spoken I do not understand what you are doing.
You are optimizing the "restart windows to ms-dos" mode?

If this is the case, I would suggest: Don't do it like that.

Windows 98SE has a very nice DOS builtin (7.1), just start it directly. When doing so, so can easily optimize also the free dos memory, start it with EMS or without. Whatever you want.

So you just stop windows from booting automatically and implement a menu, I use that at the moment for my 486 system:
DOS conventional memory for ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4

+1

More covenient as both CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT can be used like older stand-alone versions of MS-DOS. I recommend setting DOS=HIGH,UMB,NOAUTO in options where Windows 9x isn't necessary to avoid loading stuff like IFSHLP.SYS automatically.

Harry Potter wrote on 2023-05-20, 18:08:

However, I have DriveSpace installed in Windows mode but disabled it for DOS mode in MSDOS.SYS.

Don't waste any time with DriveSpace, it isn't supported on FAT32 partitions and was intended for HDD with smaller capacities.