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Using more than 512mb ram Update Fix?


mst3kpimp

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The unofficial Windows 98 SE Service Pack 2.1a was certainly a worthwhile install on my 98SE computer (running more than 512 MB of RAM). However, Service Pack 2.1a is also available from http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm#98SE , as well as downloads of additional and more recent updates.

Service Pack 2.1a does not include security and other updates for Internet Explorer. Thus, also consider downloading the "Unofficial Internet Explorer (IE) 6.0 SP1 for Windows 98/98 SP1/98 SE/ME Cumulative" 7-24-2010 update available from http://www.mdgx.com/upd98me.php .

There are several discussions of 98SE's RAM limitations on this forum. View by entering "98SE RAM limitation" in the MSFN Search field.

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@mst3kpimp: For 98SE, if you want to run with up to 1 GiB, all you need is either:

Add a "MaxFileCache=393216" (without the double inverted-commas) line under the section [VCache], both in SYSTEM.INI and in SYSTEM.CB, and if the [VCache] section does not already exist, one should create it. It is described in Q253912 - "Out of Memory" Error Messages with Large Amounts of RAM Installed, although MS doesn't mention SYSTEM.CB (which is needed for Safe Mode) and suggests using MaxFileCache=524288 (which has been demonstrated by practice to be too much in many occasions). This is one approach that does work.

or

Install Xeno86's modified VCACHE.VXD, without ever having to edit either SYSTEM.INI or SYSTEM.CB. It just works!

Now, if you want to run with > 1 GiB, then it gets somewhat more complicated... if this is the case, please do refer to the apposite thread for which a link exists in the left side of my signature.

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Windows 98 was never tested or designed for more than 512mb of ram. There are patches and "workarounds" for this, but youd be better of upgrading to a newer OS that was designed for this. Windows 95 and later have a fatal design flaw with how memory is used that doesnt exist in windows xp or later. You really need to upgrade

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Windows 98 was never tested or designed for more than 512mb of ram. There are patches and "workarounds" for this, but youd be better of upgrading to a newer OS that was designed for this. Windows 95 and later have a fatal design flaw with how memory is used that doesnt exist in windows xp or later. You really need to upgrade

Gosh!

Who's to say what's better for the original poster's circumstances and requirements? mst3kpimp didn't ask about the shortcomings of one OS compared to another. To help better answer his/her question, you should read around the 9x forums a bit - Day-to-day running Win 9x/ME with more than 1 GiB RAM. :)

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mst3kpimp,

My recollection is that "Windows 98 SE Service Pack 2.1a" includes a number of 98SE tweaks, such as replacing the "defrag.exe" file from Windows 98SE with the updated "defrag.exe" from Windows ME. The "Unofficial Service Pack 3 (beta 4)" may or may not include the same tweaks. So I recommend installation of SP 2.1a first, whether or not you install SP 3(beta 4).

I also recall that SP 2.1a creates or modifies the [VCache] MaxFileCache entry in the "system.ini" file. If so, by installing SP 2.1a, you won't have to modify the "system.ini" file manually.

"MaxFileCache=393216" is a fairly safe setting for most 98SE computers, but may not be optimum. For example, my 98SE computer is set at "MaxFileCache=457216".

When you open and then close programs on your computer, Windows 98SE will save or cache the closed programs in memory, up to the "MaxFileCache" entry (making reloading faster for these previously closed programs). If the "MaxFileCache" is absent or set too high, Windows may create such a large cache, that memory management problems may start to occur, especially for computers using more than 512MB of RAM.

Memory that Windows uses for "MaxFileCache" is also used by AGP video (how much depends on the system bios settings of "AGP Aperture"). If "AGP Aperture" is set at minimum or very low in the BIOS settings (or disabled in Windows), "MaxFileCache" can be increased. If "AGP Aperture" is set at maximum or very high in the BIOS settings, "MaxFileCache" should be decreased. For computers using less than 512MB of RAM, "MaxFileCache" also should be decreased.

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Windows 98 was never tested or designed for more than 512mb of ram. There are patches and "workarounds" for this, but youd be better of upgrading to a newer OS that was designed for this. Windows 95 and later have a fatal design flaw with how memory is used that doesnt exist in windows xp or later. You really need to upgrade

Actually I found that Windows 98 contains code that only comes into play above 2GB of RAM. At a later stage, they decided to shrink some internal tables to save space. This is what limits the amount of RAM. There was a bug, but it didn't come into play until 1.4GB. I have Patched Windows 98 so it can handle up to 4GB and written a SDK to support more.

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Windows 98 was never tested or designed for more than 512mb of ram. There are patches and "workarounds" for this, but youd be better of upgrading to a newer OS that was designed for this. Windows 95 and later have a fatal design flaw with how memory is used that doesnt exist in windows xp or later. You really need to upgrade

Gosh!

Who's to say what's better for the original poster's circumstances and requirements? mst3kpimp didn't ask about the shortcomings of one OS compared to another. To help better answer his/her question, you should read around the 9x forums a bit - Day-to-day running Win 9x/ME with more than 1 GiB RAM. :)

I used to work for Microsoft supporting windows 95/98/XP. I am very knowledgable about these OS - i supported them. Windows 9x has many memory problems that are not publicly understood, such as the system resources limitation. When i worked for M$ i would get calls all the time from people that had a 10 year old computer trying to run the latest OS. 90% of these people could afford a new pc, they were just too cheap. After years troubleshooting these OS i would never touch them. XP is soooooo much better.

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Gosh, no matter how knowledgeable about 9x/ME you may be, I've never seen you around this forum offering support.

To come here, not to offer any help, but, instead, just to tell the OP he/she ought to move on to a NT-family OS, with all due respect, is not welcome at all. We've had our share of 9x vs. NT wars, and we're *really* tired of them by now. Moreover, people here have, along the years, solved most of the problems of 9x/ME well enough for it to allow a very good level of usability. The RAM limitation and the 48-bit limitations are fully solved and the Resources issue is very much under control, by now. The number of users know to run 9x/ME stably with > 1 GiB RAM grows steadly with passing time, even if the total user number dwindles much faster (but those that remain using this OS-family do so because they love it). All this has happened in the last 4-years or so, and your own words make it clear you've not been interested in following them up.

In Portuguese we have a saying (which Latin rendering is the motto of my profile): "one who doesn't hamper helps more"...

I respectfully ask you to abide by it. Thank you.

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All this has happened in the last 4-years or so,

More like almost 7 years. My High Capacity Disk Patch was released in 12/03.

XP is soooooo much better.

My new Windows 98 Disk Patches will Boot from Hard Drives larger than 2TiB. XP cannot do this.

Microsoft has already abandoned XP, so who is going to upgrade it?

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Guest wsxedcrfv

I used to work for Microsoft supporting windows 95/98/XP. I am very knowledgable about these OS - i supported them. Windows 9x has many memory problems that are not publicly understood, such as the system resources limitation.

XP is soooooo much better.

It's too bad that it took 4 years before XP was secure enough for general purpose usage to be a credible replacement for windows 98. It's because of the hundreds of vulnerabilities that XP-SP0/SP1 had that resulted in a planet-wide botnet and spam problem (we have a spam industry that won't die now directly because of XP-SP0 and SP1). Windows 98 was never vulnerable to network worms. The joke was that if you took a fresh install of 2K or XP-SP0 and did your first windowsupdate session, your machine would become infected before the update was finished (this was known as "Windows Survival Time", usually around 10 to 20 minutes. I can take a fresh install of Windows 98, hang it on the internet, no firewall, no nat, and perform NO UPDATES, and it will not be infected by anything. Not today, not 5 years ago, not 8 years ago. The big joke 10 years ago was that win-2K was a business OS, not really appropriate for home use. Then 2 years later Microsoft foisted XP on *everybody* - home users, students, SOHO, corporate and enterprise users, putting a lie to the "2K wasn't for home users" (XP-SP0 being, basically, a minor revision to 2K). Win-98 got a bad rap because of the pathetic hardware that it found itself on 10 years ago - 16 or 32 mb of ram if you're lucky. Try the same with 2K or XP and you'd be complaining too. Buggy chipset drivers and AGP video boards crashed it often. Wasn't 98's fault.

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