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A "normal" MSDOS.SYS contains a pointer to a Windows folder containing HIMEM.SYS. A DOS Floppy has a dummy MSDOS.SYS to prevent DOS from searching for Windows. With IO.SYS 7 HIMEM.SYS is mandatory. With IO.SYS 7 CONFIG.SYS with a HIMEM entry is required when using a dummy MSDOS.SYS File. @Jaclaz 1. HIMEM.SYS is not needed with IO.SYS 8. 2. Nothing 3. Nothing. @Tripredacus The memory problem only appears if you use EMM386 or something else that actually tries to use more than 2.5GB and uses the HIMEM 2.0 protocols. DOS doesn't care. SMARTDRV only uses a few Megabytes.

The Motherboard SATA Controller would require my SATA Patch to run in Enhanced Mode. This could free up a PCI Slot if you don't need the extra Ports. I also have a Windows 98 compatable TRIM Program.

3GiB (note the "i" in the middle) is 3072MiB. The "i" indicates that the base is 1024 not 1000. At least one Handle is reserved so the Maximum Memory drops at least 64MiB.

EMM386 is not needed. The bare minimum is CONFIG.SYS containing: DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS Without EMM386, /NUMHANDLES=64 is not needed. With EMM386 it is required with more than 2.5GB of RAM.

Post #17 corrected.

We did cross post. Dencorso was answering the problem as stated by the OP. Later the OP mentioned XP and you posed your more specific question. I remember discussing the problem with EMM386 before. He picked 80 to provide an extra safety margin. I have been quite satisfied with 64. The early versions of my RAM Patch actually patched HIMEM.SYS to set the default to 64.

The right. No Gout. Already improving. Just a one time thing. In any case the Royal Chemist position is vacant at the moment. From your lack of other comments, I assume your questions have been fully answered.

Thank you for the indirect and totally gratuitous appreciation, that was very kind of you.Actually I am all ears though my interest is limited to find out if there is the need to amend/integrate/modify the info on the given thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16713 though nowadays it is not a commonly used method to install XP, but I would have liked to provide EXACT information, i.e. what exactly is needed and when (when more than 2 Gb, more than 3 Gb, more than 4 GB, etc.) an additional memory manager is actually needed or a config.sys needs to be added and with which commands. And no, most probably I will never find out (neither the soft nor the hard way), as this is mainly an S.E.P., unless you will exceptionally descend from your throne and talk to us commoners, spreading your wisdom among the people. jaclaz Dencorso provided a solution twice. Nobody responded or asked any questions, including you, until now.The problem is not in SMARTDRV. It is in EMM386. Windows 9x is shipped with a HIMEM.SYS that supports Version 3.0 Function Calls. EMM386, like Windows itself use Version 2.0 Function Calls. These are limited to just under 64MiB per Handle. HIMEM.SYS defaults to 48 Handles Max. This limits available Memory for Version 2 Calls to just under 3GiB. Less if other programs have used Handles. EMM386 appears to allocate all XMS Memory and then releases most of it. It apparently does not know how to handle the "No More Handles" Error, so it does not release XMS Memory, nor does it report any error. SMARTDRV of course then fails. /NUMHANDLES changes the default size of the Handle Table used by HIMEM.SYS. 64 Handles should be enough for normal systems as no Motherboard, I know of, allows more than about 3.7GiB of 32-Bit RAM. SMARTDRV does not require EMM386, but if you use EMM386, you will need to specify /NUMHANDLES when exceeding 2.5GiB of RAM. If a valid MSDOS.SYS File is present, DOS 7.1 will load HIMEM.SYS, DBLBUFF.SYS and IFSHLP.SYS if CONFIG.SYS is not present or does not specify them. Then you will not need CONFIG.SYS to run SMARTDRV as HIMEM is loaded and EMM386 is not. HIMEM.SYS must be in a place known to DOS or referenced in the MSDOS.SYS File. If you do not have a vaild MSDOS.SYS File then CONFIG.SYS must include a line to load HIMEM.SYS or an equivalent. Your XP Installer will probably need this. SMARTDRV itself has a bug that can cause corruption if you use it to manage a Partition larger than 128GiB. I have not found an easy fix for this. My knee has been bothering me lately so it takes a while to get down from my throne to take commoner pleadings. EDIT: Corrected default number of handles and equivalent memory.

There are four that are rarely documented. I gave you the first two. Then there is a Device ID. And finally the DDK Version. The document included in VXDProps, that dencorso attached, references the WINNT.H Include file that does list these. No details though. Your Patcher doesn't need this but your planned Version Display Program might.

@dencorso: Don't waste your breath. None of them are listening. They will find out the hard way.

I wrote a DOS based one a couple of years ago to dump this information and/or change it. It comes in very handy when attempting to port Kernel Software from Windows 98 to Windows 95 as the VXD loader will reject VXDs with a newer DDK Version Number. Incidentally, neither VXDProps nor ShutdownPatcher display the DDK Version Number.

The Patch is flawed. If you follow the instructions to only apply the Entrypoint Patch you may get a Stack fault if you try to call the Function.

Message 4 is "System VM Terminated".Message 25h is "System Exit 2". The second reverse order pass of "System Exit". Message 32h is "Kernel32 Shutdown"

The two message Patch "safe mode" works for me in Windows ME. You, like Miki, need the 25h Patch as well. I put all three in Post #1 to cover everybody.

Multibooting DOS, 95, 98SE, ME, XP, 7 and 8 was easy. One more should not be a problem.

I have found a second System Message that needs to be bypassed in order to shutdown Windows ME. I have updated Post #1 to include both System Messages and the alternate Message found by Miki.

That would be Native PATA IDE Mode.It's not very likely with Motherboards but not impossible. Add-in PATA or PATA/SATA Cards, except some very old ones, are Native Mode.

Then 256MB is probably fine for you, but recommendations need to apply to a much larger group of users. I run a business that depends upon users who find even 1152 MB is too little.

With swap disabled, you get a clearer picture of how much RAM you are actually using. Instead of slowing down to swap, you get errors. It was not a recommendation on how to configure a system. I would think 256MB is rather low unless you are a fairly light user. With just a few Browser Windows open I am seeing 500MB allocated in System Monitor.

Disable Virtual Memory in Device Manager. Then tell everyone that 256MB is enough. If you can, enjoy. Otherwise, silence is golden. I don't have Photoshop, but one of my Programs uses 27000MB of RAM.

As if it were that easy.The error you made causes a protection error on every card in every system. It would have never been released. The protection errors you are referring to are far more subtle and would take much longer to find. Even finding the code that triggered the protection error is often only the beginning of finding the cause or a fix. I have updated Post #1 to reflect the added code.

Is this code to test for 98SE only or also for ME?Only for 98SE and specifically for Miki. ME appears to need a different approach. It has a G72. Some years ago I tried to install the driver 81.98 for G70 and G73 without success. So I thought that 81.98 doesn't work with NV 7xxx cards.The 7200 works with 81.98. The 7100 also works with 77.72. So far it seems that ME has a different problem. It is possible to expand a Section of a VXD File but it is quite a bit more complicated. I wrote an Expander for ESDI_506.PDR when I developed my Encrypted Disk Patch. Otherwise you have to find and write over some unimportant existing data.

@Miki: Try this Patch for 82.69: 144: C8 -> DB (changed) 329802: DA A7 E4 FF -> C2 05 00 00 (same) 329DC8: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 -> 3C 25 74 04 3C 32 75 02 B0 52 89 44 24 04 E9 05 A2 E4 FF (changed)

Testing the others might provide additional information. I would definitely recommend that you use "25 75" over "24 72" as 25 is a Shutdown specific System Message. I just tried "25 75" with a 7200 GS and 81.98 Driver in my M5A97. It does NOT work. So things have gotten more complicated. I will try doing both System Messages and posting Code you and others can test. Thanks for the help.

Apparently a different System Message is causing your hangup. "24 72" bypasses all Messages from 24h thru 36h. If you have some time to experiment, put back the 75 and try each Hex value from 24h thru 36h in the first Byte. Don't bother with 31 or 32.