Conventional Memory in DOS

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OK, someone must know the easy answer to this. I remember something about Win98SE not needing many memory setting adjusted due to more advanced memory usage.

However, whenever I try to run scanreg/fix or scanreg/opt in pure DOS, I get a “Not enough Conventional Memory” error message. It says I need to make sure device=windows/himem.sys and device=windows/emm386.exe are loaded are loading in config.sys, and make sure all devices in config.sys and autoexec.bat are loading into high memory.

OK, sounds easy enough — except, I ALREADY HAVE himen.sys and emm386.exe in my config.sys file, and with Win98SE there are NO devices loading from these files anyways! I have 224MB of RAM on the system.

So I am totally at a loss. I went to

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I guess my first question would be, what are you defining as “pure DOS”? Do you go to DOS from the boot menu, or reboot into it from Start/Shut Down?

Also try the following command to see what is loaded into conventional memory:

MEM /C/P

And add the line DOS=HIGH,UMB to your CONFIG.SYS file.

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Are you sure the path names to the required files are where the files are located? Because I renamed my Windows directory, in my config.sys the relevant lines are :

DEVICE=C:WIN001HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:WIN001EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB

The first two of these have to be the first lines in the file. (Don’t forget the NOEMS). If you still can’t get it to work, press F8 as Windows starts to load and choose step-by-step execution of files. This will execute the instructions in autoexec.bat and config.sys one at a time and inform you what has happened in each case.

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Thanks for the responses. Let me jump back in and tell you that I have a lot more data — but I am no less confused. Here is a relevant MSKB article ( http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q187/6/80.ASP ) however, it does not help me! I have tried all of that.

When I say pure DOS, I mean booting to option “5” in Win98 Startup — as Windows starts, I have it set up so I can choose how it boots. The default is option 1 – Windows, but I can choose Bootlog (2), Safe Mode (3), Step-by-step (4), DOS (5), and DOS in Safe Mode (6). However, you should reach the SAME DOS no matter how you choose to boot to DOS, shouldn’t you?

Also, the paths are correct. Windows is in C:/Windows (default). These are my memory statistics in DOS:

Modules using memory below 1 MB:

Name | Total | Conventional

MSDOS | 18,160 (18K) | 18,160 (18K)
HIMEM | 1,168 (1K) | 1,168 (1K)
DBLBUFF 2,976 (3K) | 2,976 (3K)
IFSHLP | 2,864 (3K) | 2,864 (3K)
COMMAND | 7,328 (7K) | 7,328 (7K)
Free | 620,656 (606K) | 620,656 (606K)

Memory Summary

Type of Memory | Total | Used | Free
Conventional | 653 ,312| 32,656 | 620,656
Upper |0 | 0 | 0
Reserved| 0| 0 | 0
Extended (XMS) | 233,832,448 | 69,632 | 233,762,816
Total memory | 234,485,760 | 102,288 | 234,383,472

Total under 1 MB | 653,312 | 32,656 | 620,656

Largest executable program size | 620,640 | (606K)
Largest free upper memory block | 0 | (OK)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.
__________

That should be PLENTY of memory for scanreg /fix. The MSKB says it only needs 340K…

Here is more info:

If I boot to Safe Mode DOS, regscan does NOT run at all. I get this message:

Not enough memory

There is no extended memory driver loaded on your computer.

Make sure that you have a HIMEM.SYS file on the disk from which you are starting your computer, and then restart using the ‘Command prompt only’ option (not ‘Safe mode, command prompt only’). Depending on the location of the HIMEM.SYS file, you may need to add a line such as DEVICE=A:HIMEM.SYS or DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS in the CONFIG.SYS file on your boot drive.

Fine, so I boot to DOS (command prompt) and try to run scanreg /fix. It does run. In fact it gets all the way through user.dat without problem. However, it gets about 2/3 of the way through system.dat and it stops cold turkey and announces the memory problem.

Here is my config.sys file:

DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE noems
DOS=high,umb
DEVICEHIGH=C:WINDOWSCOMMANDDRVSPACE.SYS /MOVE
FILES=60

If I rename autoexec.bat and config.sys and reboot to DOS, the same thing happens.

Any takers?? Thanks.

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I run a DOS package on Win98 PCs which really hammers the convential memory. Here are my startup files, I’ve deleted some lines specific to the package. Hope they help. N.B. the text in brackets is comments only and should not be included.

CONFIG.SYS
DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICE=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE RAM (or ON)
FILESHIGH=30 (can be up to 244, I think)
BUFFERSHIGH=30
DOS=HIGH,UMB
SHELL=C:WINDOWSCOMMAND.COM /P/E:1536

AUTOEXEC.BAT
@ECHO OFF
SET TEMP=C:WINDOWSTEMP
SET PATH=C:WINDOWS; C:WINDOWSCOMMAND

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