Win98 on a T42

[rssb]

I wanted to put a small partition with win98 on a T42 but during the setup getting too low conventional memory errors. I have nothing else loaded , it is a clean partition.

Read couple of pages which suggested loading dos high etc.. was wondering if anyone here has already done this and faced similar situations.

thanks
rssb

[Edward Mendelson]

Haven't tried putting Win98 on a T42, but here's a general page on installing it on modern systems (especially those with more than 512MB of RAM):

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/computer.html

[erasmus]

Could it be that you have more than 512 MB of Ram? If I remember right from Win98 days - max. was 512 Mb Ram supported.

[rssb]

Thanks Edward will try out your suggestions today, yeah the system has 1.5 GB ( 1+ 512) ram in it. The 1GB is under the keyboard so will try removing the 1Gb and see if it works, but in the long run i would like to have the total ram.

[Edward Mendelson]

The method on my page tells you how to keep the RAM (absolutely no need to remove it while installing or running Windows 98). I have a dual-boot Win98/XP system with 1GB of RAM and no problems at all.

[Kyocera]

Is the partition Fat32 or NTFS? Not sure 98 will run on NTFS without some additional prep.

[Edward Mendelson]

If Win98 installed far enough to show an error, then the partition is FAT or FAT32. Win98 can't even SEE an NTFS partition, certainly can't begin to install on one. Win98 doesn't know that NTFS partitions exist.

[verktyg]

Could it be that you have more than 512 MB of Ram? If I remember right from Win98 days - max. was 512 Mb Ram supported.

There is a lot of urban myth surrounding the amount of RAM that Win98 will support or use.

From my research at the time (don't ask for details, I don't remember where I found the information) 768 MB is the most memory that Win98 can utilize. It can run on a system with more memory but it can get unstable over 1G of RAM on some PCs.

I've had Win98SE running on one of my desktops with 768 MB for over 4 years with no problems.

I installed Win98SE on a blank HDD in my X31 with 1G of memory. It worked OK but I abandoned the project because I ran out of time and patience; I was having problems getting some of the drivers to install or work properly.

[erasmus]

I still think, rssb. You should try to remove the 1G block to see if it solves your Win 98 problem. I did for me back in 2001/02. I had 2x256 + 1x128.
It installed Win98 perfectly with the 640 Mb and ran office programs, but when I tried some games it kept locking up. Removing the 128 block solved the problem.

I don't know if MS via Win98 updates increased the support. But it looks like Edward Mendelson has a solution for more Ram. (but you have to reinstall Win98).

[Edward Mendelson]

All that's needed is to boot either to the Win98 DOS command line or to Win98 safe mode, and edit the system.ini file by adding one or two lines. After that, Win98 Just Works no matter how much physical RAM is in the system. You don't have to reinstall it. The exact syntax is on the page I linked to earlier.

This is a very widely-known solution to a very widely-known problem. I didn't invent the solution, just reported it.

[verktyg]

BUNK! ....... BUNK, BUNK, BUNK, BUNK, BUNK!

I've built dozens of Win98SE systems and I currently have 5 laptops and 7 desktops sill running Win98SE.

I used to follow all of the guru advice and put the recommended vcache entries in the System.ini files. For example:

[vcache]
MinFileCache=65536
MaxFileCache=65536
ChunkSize=512

A number of my systems were dog slow relative to the CPUs, memory and video cards that were installed. A few years ago I read several explanations that pointed out that the vcache entries were for Win95 and the memory problems they meant to overcome were partially fixed in Win98 (search the web yourself for the details, there are thousands of articles to wade through and I don't remember where I found them - Fred Langa formerly of Windows Magazine was one of the sources).

When I removed the vcache entries, ALL of my Win98SE systems ran drastically better and faster.

Generally I found that 192MB was the point of declining returns for general purpose PCs running office apps and surfing the internet. More memory was useful in laptops because it reduced the amount of disk paging which gave better battery life.

More RAM made a performance difference when running large Excel and Access files, graphics programs and sound editing.

I installed Win98SE on my X31 with 1G of memory and it ran without a problem except I was having driver problems so I abandoned the project.

768 MB is probably the largest reliable amount of RAM for Win98SE. I've seen problems with 1G before so it's questionable. I have 768 MB on my Win98SE Athlon 1.8 PC. I also run NT4 and Win2k on that system. NT4 is by far the fastest performing as far as program loading and file manipulation is concerned.

Why can some people run more than 512MB of memory in Win98SE and others can't? The number one cause is defective memory!!!! There are probably tons of bad memory in use. Intermittent memory problems are one of the most common causes of windows instability, especially with a new or recent Windows installation. Run Memtest386 and DocMem from boot disks to test your memory.

Other issues for large memory problems with Win98SE are the way a motherboard and BIOS handles AGP memory usage. This is configurable in the BIOS in some systems. These are hardware problems and there may not be any work around for them.

There are also a number of Registry tweaks and shareware programs that promise to fix Win98SE large memory problems. I've tried a few and saw little difference in performance over the native Win98SE installation configuration.

[Edward Mendelson]

I've been running Win98SE with system.ini specifying 999MB of RAM (in a physical 1GB system that dual-boots to XP) for two years, and the vcache settings. Everything's very fast, very stable. I burn DVDs, connect to a VPN, edit large files, etc.

I'm now trying it out with the vcache settings commented out - no problems so far...

EDIT: No wait: can't run DOS apps at all with no Vcache settings on this 999MB system. Restoring these Vcache settings solves the problem:

[vcache]
MinFileCache=65536
MaxFileCache=393216
ChunkSize=512

[verktyg]

EDIT: No wait: can't run DOS apps at all with no Vcache settings on this 999MB system. Restoring these Vcache settings solves the problem

Interesting, your saying that you have problems running programs in DOS windows without the vcache settings?

I have an old Sony 505G PII 200 MHz with 128MB of memory. I did some serious work with it while I was on the road about 5 years ago. I was working on catalogs and price lists with Word & Excel.

I played around with vcache setting and some shareware programs but I kept running out of memory with several programs open, cutting and pasting between them. When I removed the vcache entries the problems went away.

My T20 was dog slow with a PIII M 650 and 256MB of RAM. Performance also improved greatly after I removed the entries.

[Edward Mendelson]

I think we're talking about completely different situations:

Remember that I have 1 GB of RAM in the machine, and Windows 98 tends to get very confused by more than 512 MB unless you use the Vcache settings. So you may not need any vcache settings at all with 128 or 256 MB, but you do need them on my 1 GB system in order to avoid the strange "Not enough memory to run this program" messages when you run DOS apps.

[verktyg]

I asked if you only needed the vcache setting for DOS apps in a Dos Window and you said yes.

I suggested that from my experience, vcache caused problems in Win98SE on ALL of my systems including the one with 768MB of RAM. It's a multi-boot PC with 98SE, NT4 and Win2K. I'm only running 768MB instead of 1G because of problems that I'd seen or heard about.

I've seen a few instances of out of memory problems in DOS apps in a DOS window but I was able to survive without these programs.

One thing that I've done in the past is to use an AUTOEXEC.BAT menu with several batch files to to use different configurations of the startup files. For example you can have a SYSTEM.INI and a SYSTEM.DOS file. The batch file copies and renames the appropriate file.

http://dos.rsvs.net/DOSPAGE/CONFMENU.HTM

[Edward Mendelson]

Actually I didn't say that the problem occurred *only* with DOS apps. I also saw it with some Windows programs that accessed the hardware more or less directly (CD-writing programs, etc.). But this time around I first noticed it with DOS apps.

No slowdown here with vcache set. I wonder what the variable might be!

[rssb]

I used Edward's setting and the system said 512mb inside win98, the system actually had 1.5gb. Performance wise also it was ok, the wireless card didnot work though. Thanks to everyone for thier suggestions.

[Edward Mendelson]

You'll need to install a driver for the wireless card under Win98. Win98 doesn't have wireless built in (unlike XP). You don't say which card you've got (IBM/Atheros or Intel) - but you'll need to find a Win98 driver for it somehow.

Here's the one for the IBM/Atheros card:

http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.ws ... MIGR-55359

Let us know how it works. (Shouldn't be hard to find the one for Intel.)

EDIT - actually here's a list of all the drivers:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-55386

If everything works with 512MB listed, then use msconfig/Advanced to up the RAM first to 768, then to 999 if everything works.