Expanded Memory

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marshall Price
  • Start date Start date
M

Marshall Price

I'm still looking for detailed help on enabling expanded memory support
for Lotus Symphony 2.2. Any good links or advice?
 
I'm still looking for detailed help on enabling expanded memory support
for Lotus Symphony 2.2. Any good links or advice?
Click to expand...

Marshall, what operating system is on your new laptop?

In XP, autoexec.bat and config.sys are not used. Look to autoexec.nt and
config.nt but only after doing a bit of reading (editing these isn't always
necessary).

In general: MS-DOS type programs, such as this one that you have that
depends on expanded memory, run within a MS-DOS emulator. There are two
emulators included in XP with CMD.EXE being the preferred one.

I've abandoned these older programs so can't be of much more help than this
but the MS Knowledge Base has a few articles about setting this up and
there are a few third party tools available for more stubborn/older
programs that I've read about in these newsgroups.

Here's links to two relevant articles:

Troubleshooting MS-DOS-based programs in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314106/en-us

How to Troubleshoot 16-Bit Windows Programs in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314495/en-us
 
Sharon said:
Marshall, what operating system is on your new laptop?
Click to expand...

Windows XP Media Center Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
In XP, autoexec.bat and config.sys are not used. Look to autoexec.nt and
config.nt but only after doing a bit of reading (editing these isn't always
necessary).
Click to expand...

Yes, that's right. At the first of the links you provided below, it
says that custom CONFIG.NT and AUTOEXEC.NT files should end with the .NT
extension, but I had Symphony working on Windows XP Home Edition using
an extension of my own invention: CONFIG.SY and CONFIG.NT. They can be
located anywhere, as long as the shortcut from which the program is
launched contains the full path names to them.

Unfortunately, I've lost the original shortcut and configuration files,
and I forget whether I used to launch Symphony from a batch file (I
think I did), to which I applied the shortcut with its special
properties. As I recall, Symphony used the LIM EMS expanded memory
specification, but it may have been version 4.0 or 3.2. It doesn't use
extended memory at all. And it requires a lot of conventional memory.
In general: MS-DOS type programs, such as this one that you have that
depends on expanded memory, run within a MS-DOS emulator. There are two
emulators included in XP with CMD.EXE being the preferred one.
Click to expand...

You can create shortcuts to both CMD.EXE and COMMAND.COM, but only the
latter has settings for memory among its properties. I've tried running
Symphony from a COMMAND.COM shortcut with expanded memory enabled, but
it doesn't work. Not only that, but MEM doesn't report any expanded
memory, and even DEBUG (using its XS command) reports "EMS not installed".
I've abandoned these older programs so can't be of much more help than this
but the MS Knowledge Base has a few articles about setting this up and
there are a few third party tools available for more stubborn/older
programs that I've read about in these newsgroups.
Click to expand...

So far I've discovered EmsMagic and emstoolk. The latter is very
technical, and I haven't expermented with it, but EmsMagic is great.

It can be installed via a Windows Installer, which I haven't tried, but
it can also be run from the command line. By running

EMSMAGIC /RAM=900

I managed to get Symphony running nicely, and succeeded in my main goal,
which was to load a very large Symphony data file into memory and print
it out. But it only gives me, according to Symphony:

Conventional Memory: 249945 of 250384 Bytes (99%)
Expanded Memory: 868140 of 868140 Bytes (100%)

(According to Symphony's help, "This sheet also shows how much main
memory is free.")

After "retrieving" a file of 597839 bytes, Symphony reports:

Conventional Memory: 211187 of 250384 Bytes (84%)
Expanded Memory: 333064 of 868140 Bytes (38%)

These are rather small numbers compared to what I've had in the past,
also under Windows XP.
Here's links to two relevant articles:

Troubleshooting MS-DOS-based programs in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314106/en-us

How to Troubleshoot 16-Bit Windows Programs in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314495/en-us
Click to expand...

The second link isn't applicable, since Symphony isn't a Windows
program, and the first link doesn't go into enough detail.

What I need, in addition to more information about shortcut property
settings, is more information about the CONFIG.NT and AUTOEXEC.NT files.
I'm sure Lotus must have recommended some settings originally, and
perhaps they may still work today.

The fact that enabling expanded memory support for the COMMAND.COM
shortcut doesn't result in MEM reporting any expanded memory is
disconcerting.

I'm pleased that EmsMagic emulates EMS memory, but I don't understand
all the complications, and it appears not to leave me much conventional
memory, at least with Windows XP's default AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT.

Can anybody supply links to older (circa 1987-1992) documentation on
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS, particularly for running Lotus Symphony?
 
Back
Top