Win-98 system upgraded from 512mb to 1gb ram - can't open command shell (out of memory error)

[Nomen]

I've got a couple of win-98 systems on identical hardware (Intel chipset, socket 478 P-4) yes they're probably 20 years old.

One system has 1 gb ram, it does not appear to have "MaxPhysPage" setting in system.ini, system information shows 999mb system memory.  This system has been running for a while, I don't know what I did to get Win-98 to run with 1 gb ram.  I can open a dos window with no errors.

The second system is one I'm working on right now.  It had 512 mb ram.  I changed that to 1 gb, and windows wouldn't start.  I expected that.  I didn't remember the details how to fix that, but I found them.  Primarily it involves the MaxPhysPage setting in system.ini (and system.cb).

First thing I did was change device=himemx.exe in config.sys (instead of himem.sys). I didn't have that file on system 2, but it was on system 1.  I don't know how necessary that file is, but that alone doesn't get this win-98 running with 1 gb ram.

I then went to system.ini and started with MaxPhysPage=40000, then 3B000, and then 30000 and that's when win-98 started up and seems to be ok.  System.ini did not have a maxphyspage setting before.  But oddly, the first system does not have that parameter in system.ini but that win98 is fine with 1 gb ram.

With MaxPhysPage=30000 on the second system, Windows reports 763 mb ram.  I've tried a bunch of programs (firefox, office 2k stuff like word, excel, outlook)  they all run fine.  I then tried to open a dos window.  Nope.  "There is not enough available memory to run this program."

So that's why I'm here, to ask what sort of setting in what file is probably needed here so that I can open a dos window.  Or is it more involved than that?

[SweetLow]

Or limit XMS memory to 512M or use RLoew's PATCHMEM.

And "MaxPhysPage setting in system.ini" is bad idea.

P.S. It is pinned topic...