jls@hsv3.UUCP (James Seidman) (10/04/90)
Here's a piece of PIF brilliance for you. Suppose you're running in enhanced mode, and run a program whose PIF specifies for EMS memory "0 KB required, 1024 KB allowed." Now, when you run the program, it gives you (at least on my system with 4 MB RAM) 590 KB EMS memory. Suppose you now change it so that you have specified "512 KB required, 1024 KB allowed." Now when you run the program, it gives you a paltry 48 KB of expanded memory!!! You can try this easily by making two PIFs for COMMAND.COM, and then using the DOS 4.0 "mem" command, or TurboPower's "mapmem" or any other utility which shows EMS memory. Note that both PIFs will report 1540 KB *total* EMS memory, but the *free* EMS memory available to the application drops drastically when you specify that it actually needs the memory. Why, might you ask, do I not call Microsoft and tell them about it? I'll tell you... *** Microsoft flame on Well, the reason is that I spent *45 minutes* on hold to them yesterday (that's 45 minutes counting from the "You may experience a wait of up to 30 mintues..." message), waiting to ask them about EMS. (I hadn't figured out this was the problem. I just knew that my Epsilon editor wasn't using EMS.) After finally getting through, they told me that they couldn't help me, and to call Lugaru (the makers of Epsilon). The guy from Lugaru was nice enough to spend quite a bit of time experimenting and tracking down the problem. The technician from Microsoft was such a ditz that when I asked her why EMM386.SYS caused my system to crash as soon as I ran a program (outside of Windows) which used EMS, she told me it was because I didn't have expanded memory. She "explained" to me that "EMM" stood for "Expanded Memory Manager" and allowed Windows to use EMS memory for its own purpose. I had to get her to look it in the Windows manual to convince her that it was really supposed to emulate expanded memory outside of Windows. As you might have guessed, she couldn't tell me why it was crashing my system. You'd think that with the rate at which Windows is selling, they could hire some more technicians to answer questions. Especially considering that they don't seem to spend much on training or the like. If I'm going to get answers which are completely useless, at least don't make me wait 45 minutes for them! *** Microsoft flame off -- Jim Seidman (Drax), the accidental engineer. UUCP: ames!vsi1!headland!jls INTERNET: headland.UUCP!jls@ames.nasa.arc.gov