nfs@notecnirp.Princeton.EDU (Norbert Schlenker) (12/30/89)
Here I am, trying to clean up a too full hard disk. When I bought this Toshiba 5100, it came bundled with a copy of Windows/386 that I have yet to use seriously. So, thinks I, let's see whether it's worth keeping around. The first thing I notice is that I can apparently have an infinite number of copies of the standard Windows application programs (clock, notepad, write, reversi, etc.) all running. Fine and dandy. The next thing I notice is that I cannot start a single real application inside this turkey. So I get rid of the "smartdrive" (where do they get these names?) and let Windows play with the whole 2Mb that I have. Now I can start one copy of command.com, which will run applications in about 450Kb of memory. Not fantastic, but better. Now can I start WordPerfect in another window? Uh-uh. Not enough memory to run, it says. So I finally RTFM, and it has a vague reference to setting "swapdisk" and "swapsize" in win.ini. I follow the instructions and do that, but nothing changes. To recap, I have a 2 Mb machine (640K real, 1408K extended) that cannot run more than one decent sized application. What have I done wrong? Is Windows really incapable of swapping - if so, why does the manual have all this gibberish about it? Should I waste 2Mb of disk space on this software? Should I buy VM/386? Should I buy Desqview? Please email me your answers ... I don't usually have the time to read this group. Norbert