maurice@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Dale Ross Maurice) (11/13/88)
Ok now that we have this new newsgroup about MS windows I'd like to ask
a question of the knowledgeable. The people at Microsoft did not satisfy
me with an appropriate answer.
Concerning windows/386: Just how much memory do you need to have to run
non windows applications in a window? I have two meg of memory and I can
run as many windows applications as I like. Whenever I try to run a non
windows application windows crashes the the following error:
Fatal Exit code 0x0404
This happens so quickly I'm not competely sure that this is what it displays
because it resets the screen before it can be read easily.
The person I talked to at Microsoft said that I couldn't run any non
windows applications with two megs. I was under the assumption that windows
would page. I can't get it to work. I'm ready to pack it up and ship it
back.
If it is indeed memory that I need I still think it's just a little
silly of windows not to check and see if I have enough memory before trying
an operation. Even I do more checking in programs I'm just testing.
Thanks for the help,
Dale Maurice
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* Dale Ross Maurice UUCP: maurice@xanth.UUCP l
s Old Dominion University or: ...!uunet!xanth!maurice e
* New ARPA: maurice@cs.edu.odu s
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nesselesussensselesussensselesussensselesussensselesussensselesussensselesussenliber@darth.UUCP (Eric Liber) (11/14/88)
Well, I am sure glad to see this news group. I sometimes think i am the only person using Windows(/386). In answer to the poster that wondered whether you could run non windows tasks with only !!! two meg under windows 386. If microsoft said it won't work then i am inclinded to believe that the person you talked to is either unknowledgable or lying ;-). I run Windows/386 at work on a 2meg PS/2 model 80 and at home on my new (AHEM!!) Gateway 386 with 2.5 meg (.5meg of ooooold sloooooow 16 bit memory) and I regularly run non windows apps. If you set up a pif file for them most things will run in a window just fine (even Microsoft's JET - a tad slow). Rough calculations and observations indicate that you need about 15-20% more memory than that requested in the PIF to run the application. That is if you say you need 512k you mus have about 512 * 1.2 = 614k free. With only the Executive window running you will have about 1300k free on a 2 meg machine. This is only an estimate because the way that windows allocates memory is still a mystery (apparently to microsoft also :-)). I have a utility that i picked up off a bbs called FREEEMS ( i think) which shows free ems and regular memory dynamically, but, sometimes it is really a puzzlement where the numbers come from. One other note: If you decide to buy a 386 machine (at least a gateway 386) and want to run windows 386 avoid AWARD BIOS (version 3.03???). I tried and windows will NOT READ THE FLOPPY DISKS under this bios. It hangs the computer permanently or drops back to dos unpredictably. GET A PHEONIX BIOS it works flawlessly (at least it has for the last 4 or 5 days ;-). Now a question: does any body know how to replace the SYSTEM font in things like the Executive window. And how does fontedit relate to the standard fonts shipped with windows since it only edits .fnt files and all the shipped fonts are .fon files and fontedit will not recognize them. Anyway it is good to be able to talk to other windows hackers (oops bad word any more .. i guess :-)). Have fun Eric