dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics) (12/01/88)
I've just bought Windows/386, and am running it on a no-name clone with the Chips and Technologies 386 chipset and a Phoenix BIOS. I find that Windows will never run two applications - all attempts fail with a "not enough memory" message. (Sorry, I should be more specific: it won't run two _standard_ applications). The MSDOS executive claims that there is plenty of free memory (I have about 1.6 Meg total), but just won't run the second application. I've also never seen it swap anything to disk. Does anyone have any idea what I may be doing wrong?
pshen@mit-atrp.UUCP (Paul Shen) (12/02/88)
In article <5327@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics) writes: >I've just bought Windows/386, and am running it on a no-name clone with the Chips >and Technologies 386 chipset and a Phoenix BIOS. I find that Windows will never >run two applications - all attempts fail with a "not enough memory" message. >(Sorry, I should be more specific: it won't run two _standard_ applications). >The MSDOS executive claims that there is plenty of free memory (I have about >1.6 Meg total), but just won't run the second application. I have alos meet the similar problem. My system is a 286AT, and the harddisk is partitioned into 1M-bytes (driver C with system files) and 19M-bytes (driver D for applications, include MS-Window 2.03). No matter how I install the windows, it keep on swapping in logic driver C (and it is almost full before swapping). It often give "not enough memory" message, even though there is more than 3M-bytes in logic driver D and the MSDOS executive also claims so. Paul pshen@atrp.media.mit.edu
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/02/88)
>I've just bought Windows/386, and am running it on a no-name clone with the Chips >and Technologies 386 chipset and a Phoenix BIOS. I find that Windows will never >run two applications - all attempts fail with a "not enough memory" message. >(Sorry, I should be more specific: it won't run two _standard_ applications). >The MSDOS executive claims that there is plenty of free memory (I have about >1.6 Meg total), but just won't run the second application. >I've also never seen it swap anything to disk. Does anyone have any idea what >I may be doing wrong? You are trying to run two standard programs that are too big to fit. Try running two SMALL programs - it will work fine. Actually, there are reasons for this. Windows 386 does indeed appear to be unable to swap to disk (Desqview does, and is so slow that maybe Microsoft was right). It seems that Windows 386 allocates MUCH more memory than is needed to run the program. It must save a bitmap of the whole screen (and will, indeed, if needed, save all of graphics memory, which for a full EGA is 256K. Yes, one screen is less, but there is room for two). There must be other stuff too, it is so big. Try running two programs each less than 100K long. It will work. Microsoft probably is a secret agent of Japan Inc. Memory Chips. :-) Doug McDonald
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/03/88)
In my last response I said: You are trying to run two standard programs that are too big to fit. Try running two SMALL programs - it will work fine. I forgot to add that you have to tell Windows that they are small in the pif file.
dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics) (12/05/88)
In article <245400002@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > >You are trying to run two standard programs that are too big to fit. >Try running two SMALL programs - it will work fine. > >Actually, there are reasons for this. Windows 386 does indeed appear >to be unable to swap to disk (Desqview does, and is so slow that >maybe Microsoft was right). It seems that Windows 386 allocates MUCH >more memory than is needed to run the program. It must save a bitmap >of the whole screen (and will, indeed, if needed, save all of graphics >memory, which for a full EGA is 256K. Yes, one screen is less, but >there is room for two). There must be other stuff too, it is so big. >Try running two programs each less than 100K long. It will work. > >Microsoft probably is a secret agent of Japan Inc. Memory Chips. :-) > >Doug McDonald Thanks for your reply - you were right that I could run two small programs. I'm very confused about how to determine how much memory is available, however. The numbers given by the MSDOS Executive don't seem to bear much relation to reality - is there a utility somewhere that will tell me how much memory is really available for additional windows? As to the use of the disk for swapping, I'm only considering using it for applications that aren't going to attempt to run in the background. I should be able to put up with a small delay when I select the window again. The Windows manual even names a WIN.INI variable (sorry, it's at work and I forget the name) to hold a swapping directory. Does Windows/386 just ignore this? Duncan Murdoch
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/05/88)
>Thanks for your reply - you were right that I could run two small programs. >I'm very confused about how to determine how much memory is available, >however. The numbers given by the MSDOS Executive don't seem to bear >much relation to reality - is there a utility somewhere that will tell me >how much memory is really available for additional windows? Windows does tell how much is left. What it doesn't tell is how much the next program will need. That is much bigger than stated in the pif file. I haven't figured out how to do it.
andrea@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Andrea K. Frankel) (12/06/88)
In article <5345@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics) writes: >I'm very confused about how to determine how much memory is available, >however. The numbers given by the MSDOS Executive don't seem to bear >much relation to reality - is there a utility somewhere that will tell me >how much memory is really available for additional windows? I keep "freemem.exe" running as an icon (loaded in my win.ini); this helps in figuring out what's really going on, and has also proved useful in tracking down puzzling "memory leaks" due to drivers mismanaging fonts, etc. It seems to respond pretty quickly, although I couldn't vouch for it being 100% accurage (I mean, what would I check it with?). Andrea Frankel, Hewlett-Packard (San Diego Division) (619) 592-4664 "...I brought you a paddle for your favorite canoe." ______________________________________________________________________________ UUCP : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!andrea Internet : andrea%hp-sdd@hp-sde.sde.hp.com (or @nosc.mil, @ucsd.edu) CSNET : andrea%hp-sdd@hplabs.csnet USnail : 16399 W. Bernardo Drive, San Diego CA 92127-1899 USA
pa1022@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (pa1022) (12/06/88)
From what I can tell, Windows/386 reserves a virtual machine and a default of 640k to run windows applications. It seems to be the amount of free space for winapps in this 640k that the MS-Dos Executive reports on. If you set up PIF files and play around with the numbers a bit, you should be able to fit two fairly large programs, since most programs don't need a full 640k (which is what Win/386 wants to give them) if they don't have to share memory with DOS or anything else. However, this means you have to determine ahead of time how much memory you think your winapps will need, since you have to set that in your WIN.INI file, with the windowmemsize variable. You can't use more than this to run winapps, and you can't use this memory if you need more for oldapps. If I'm wrong on any of this, somebody please correct me. And if you know how Windows/386 decides how much expanded memory to have at any given time, please let me know. Eric
Charlie@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (Charles Anderson) (12/07/88)
In article <1723@hp-sdd.HP.COM> andrea@hp-sdd.UUCP (Andrea K. Frankel) writes: |In article <5345@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics) writes: |>I'm very confused about how to determine how much memory is available, |>however. The numbers given by the MSDOS Executive don't seem to bear |>much relation to reality - is there a utility somewhere that will tell me |>how much memory is really available for additional windows? | |I keep "freemem.exe" running as an icon (loaded in my win.ini); this |helps in figuring out what's really going on, and has also proved useful |in tracking down puzzling "memory leaks" due to drivers mismanaging |fonts, etc. It seems to respond pretty quickly, although I couldn't |vouch for it being 100% accurage (I mean, what would I check it with?). Since freemem uses GlobalCompact to get the free memory, it only knows about the largest piece of free memory, and it doesn't seem to know about expanded memory.-- Charlie Anderson - caa@midgard.mn.org