How to get EMS configured in Win98SE

[c0rv1d43]

An end user has been given a Dell Inspiron 2500 (PIII 1GHz, 128 MB RAM, 10 Gig HD) to accomplish a huge variety of PLC and other equipment programming tasks in a publishing plant. Some of the tasks require some really ancient DOS software to directly manipulate the serial port on the machine. That software wouldn't run under Windows 2000, the OS that was preloaded on the system. I set the system up for dual booting with Win98SE / Win2K. This system is recent enough that there are no drivers available for video under the old DOS-based OS, so the system has to run with the standard VGA display adapter drivers at 640x480. That's no problem because the only use for this partition is the running of the DOS programs.

Here's the rub. Some of the DOS programs require expanded memory. When I go into the properties dialog for their PIFs the Expanded Memory portion of the Memory tab page of that dialog box has a little message in it. The message says that this machine has not been configured to provide expanded memory for DOS programs. Cool. I hit the Details button and get a message box which says that a "third party memory manager" has not been configured to provide expanded memory. I take a look in the CONFIG.SYS file and the SYSTEM.INI file and the registry. I examine memory using the mem command's various switches. Funny thing -- there is no third party memory manager being loaded. I check to be sure there's no NoEMSDriver or EmmExclude line in the [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI. Nope. I add the himem.sys and emm386.exe device lines to the CONFIG.SYS and reboot. I hit the Esc key during boot so I can watch the loading process. I see a DOS error message stating that a page frame could not be created and that expanded memory will not be available. Cool. I go into SYSTEM.INI and stick in ReservePageFrame=yes statement in the [386Enh] section. I reboot. I see the same message.

The mem command tells me there are no free UMBs. I experiment with changing and / or turning of ports using the very little leeway given me by the typically brain-dead Dell BIOS setup program. No change.

Does this mean that this hardware simply will not support EMS regardless of how I try to configure the DOS-based Windows installation? Does anyone have direct experience with this particular Dell Inspiron and the DOS environment. I know it's a weird thing to try to do, but these are the tools we have at hand. Before I simply tell these folks that they have to find another notebook for this fellow, I'd like at least a little confirmation from someone who might be more familiar with this stuff than I am. I only used Win98SE very briefly before switching to Windows 2000, and then Windows XP. Maybe someone who's suffered longer can give me a little advice???

Thanks.

- Collin

 

[Staver]

I think you need to load the emm386.exe file with the correct parameters in the config.sys file

 

[c0rv1d43]

Hi, Staver.

Yep, that was one of the steps I took before posting. (I think I mentioned it somewhere in the second paragraph of my long-winded first message.) The system doesn't appear to be able to establish a base address for the page frame, at least from what I can see at startup. I'm an old big iron guy, and I'm totally out of my depth with this DOS magic. Thank heavens for Win2K and WinXP. I'm thinking this is really a design issue with this system.

I had to edit the registry to keep Windows 98SE from turning off the serial port. This old DOS software can't tell Windows to turn the port on, and we can't really boot the system to DOS. There were so many of these legacy programs that we couldn't stick them into a single FAT16 partition, not to mention that we had to keep it simple for some of the people who will be using the notebook. But having nog EMS may defeat us in our attempt to use the system anyway.

Thank you for your response.

- Collin

 

[Staver]

Long ago, I used qemm386 instead of himem and emm386. I think you just need to locate an available 64K for the ems page frame. The default is at E, but it can be moved. You also need to make sure high memory is available as well. Many copy slow roms and video memory in that area via the bios for faster response.

 

[c0rv1d43]

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me. You're right. I just need to find 64K, but it isn't there -- at least not in a contiguous block. And it appears that Dell has left no way of preventing the shadowing shenanigans the system plays with upper memory. I guess the options on their notebooks are even more sparse than they are on their desktop systems. Well, that's what these guys get for not doing a little more research. They can fix the problem by learning before buying whether or not the system will support EMS, or they can upgrade their utilities software. (There are Win32 versions of all of these utilities.)

I appreciate your help. I guess that I was just basically looking for confirmation that my addled old wits had perceived the situation correctly.

- Collin

 

[Staver]

I believe the old Dos 6.21 memmaker could tell you what the upper memory system map looked like, then you could move things manually. I'd run this, if you can, to confirm that there is no contiguous 64K block.
As an added note, I run old Dos programs all the time that require 8Megs+ of EMS in a Win2000. What errors are you getting?

 

[c0rv1d43]

Thanks. The memory map already showed no free UMBs (at all!). I've worked out an alternative for these guys that's going to get the job done. It's called upgrading the blooming software!

😀

- Collin