Very Good Win9x boot Speedup!

[Tihiy]

Ok, i've never seen this here, it's only One's expirience.

Stuff:

MS-DOS does not support Ultra DMA HDD modes.

Read speed is limited to 1-2 Mb/s while Win9x protected-mode drivers aren't loaded and the difference between modern UDMA 20-30 Mb/s are huge even on hi-end system.

So the solution is to enable Ultra DMA mode in DOS.

1) Download latest copy of UDMA2 package for DOS

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/...dos/udma/devel/

it's compatible with any DOS version.

2) Include device=<driver name> or devicehigh=<driver name> to config.sys. U can use any .sys driver from package (i prefer UDMAJR because it's safe and fast)

3) Find IOS.INI file in windows folder and add UDMAJR.SYS (or another driver's name) to the [safeList] entry (to tell Windows to unload driver when booting protected mode drivers)

Reboot and feel the 3-10 seconds speedup.

[soldier1st]

thats only for dos apps,it doesen't really help windows 9x

sides dos apps and 16bit apps r long gone as far as i'm concerned(i never use em),these do help but for windows not really dos

put these under system.ini under 386Enh

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

PageBuffers=32

32BitDiskAccess=on

32BitFileAccess=on

for msdos.sys under options:

LoadTop=1

BootWarn=0

BootDelay=0

BootMulti=0

DblSpace=0

DisableLog=1

DrvSpace=0

and under config.sys:

STACKS=0,0

these make for a fairly fast 98 se system(these may work for me)and visit http://www.mdgx.com/ for lotsa reg tweaks you can apply to make it faster,more stable/etc...

[azagahl]

> thats only for dos apps,it doesen't really help windows 9x

If you load a large number of programs and TSR's in your config.sys and autoexec.bat, this should help speed up booting Win9X. Personally I load well over a dozen DOS programs - ifshlp, setver, nansi, smartdrv, CD rom drivers, ram disk, doskey, video bios accelerator, kbd accelerator, SB16 emulation, video mode/font settings programs, etc.

So far I've installed it but I haven't measured the time difference yet.

[zoem]

> thats only for dos apps,it doesen't really help windows 9x

If you load a large number of programs and TSR's in your config.sys and autoexec.bat, this should help speed up booting Win9X. Personally I load well over a dozen DOS programs - ifshlp, setver, nansi, smartdrv, CD rom drivers, ram disk, doskey, video bios accelerator, kbd accelerator, SB16 emulation, video mode/font settings programs,  etc.

So far I've installed it but I haven't measured the time difference yet.

!

i set my 9x systems up without anything in the config.sys and autoexec.bat files. i seriously dont see the point? this just causes conflicts with windows and games, etc

[aLeXis]

yeah i think today is useless to load your config.sys and autoexec with all that stuff...maybe if we were still in the DOS era that would have been helpful but now is just a pain

[soldier1st]

well i agree but if you want to experiment then add STACKS=0,0 entree in the config.sys,if it don't help remove it,simple as that

all my tweaks are aimed for improving windows not dos as were not in the dos era now,sides a few use dos apps the rest don't

[azagahl]

>all my tweaks are aimed for improving windows not dos as were not in the dos era now

Speak for yourself. I use everything from dos thru winxp.

And why do you use win9x if not for DOS compatability?

Also, if you use win9x, you still load himem, emm386, ifshlp and possibly drvspace. Loading these can still be sped up with udma.sys. FYI win9x is built around dos so dos-specific tweaks are certainly relevant.

If you don't want to use it, then don't. No need to whine about it.

[soldier1st]

not whining just speaking my opinion as every1 is entitled to do so

babies whine and ppl who don't get what they want whine

i am neither

[zoem]

once in the windows GUI, it overrules DOS. Yes kids, that why your DOS soundcard driver wont run sounds in the windows GUI...This sounddriver is for if you choose to go into dos mode out of windows and run games. So from the way i see it, the DOS portion of 98 is just backwards capability. that dont mean that windows98 is built on DOS.

[soldier1st]

no just win 98 has a bit more dos gone and more 32bit code in it,to me 98 has 50%32bit and 50%16bit ,95 had 25%32 bit and 75% 16bit,me has 75% 32 bit and 25% 16bit but it failed cuzz of the 2000 enhancements otherwise me would have been a good os

thats just the way i see it

[Whimsy]

...me has 75% 32 bit and 25% 16bit but it failed cuzz of the 2000 enhancements otherwise me would have been a good os

thats just the way i see it

It was the unstable additions to the user interface that ME used, coupled with many braindead features (System Restore) that caused ME to be a horrible version of Windows. Under the hood, it used what amounted to the same kernel, but did a better job hiding it. It was hardly as simple as "75% 32 bit code". At best, ME was a prototype for what XP would become, and should have remained locked deep in the vaults at MS, or bootlegged on the black market as a "test market".

Windows 95 was originally going to be marketed as Windows 4.0, and probably not even as standalone as it ended up. Windows 98 SE added native support for WDM Drivers. I'd interprate this as the echos of Windows 2000, which would also (and only) support WDM Drivers. This would make sense if they wanted to streamline everything so they only had to write one version of a particular driver, and maybe prepare for the push to Windows XP. (Most of this is a guess).

Anyway, back on topic, you might as well add this to your config.sys:

shell=c:\windows\win.exe

Make sure you have a boot disk on hand if you do this.

[soldier1st]

but xp prooved better cuzz it uses the nt kernel not the dos kernel

98 was indeed sposed to be the last win9x os but ms wanted to bring me out

a failed experiment gone bad hmm....

[azagahl]

>Yes kids, that why your DOS soundcard driver wont run sounds in the windows GUI...This sounddriver is for if you choose to go into dos mode out of windows and run games.

Not sure what you are babbling about - my sound card works in DOS AND Windows.

>that dont mean that windows98 is built on DOS.

Try deleting io.sys and see how far Windows gets.

[zoem]

>Yes kids, that why your DOS soundcard driver wont run sounds in the windows GUI...This sounddriver is for if you choose to go into dos mode out of windows and run games.

Not sure what you are babbling about - my sound card works in DOS AND Windows.

>that dont mean that windows98 is built on DOS.

Try deleting io.sys and see how far Windows gets.

i hav an SB16 soundcard floating around in one of my systems. if u dnt load the windows driver, but only the DOS driver for it....u aint gonna hav any sound in the windows GUI...

if i was to delete io.sys, that wouldnt get me into dos. windows runs ON TOP OF dos. if it was PART of windows, you wouldnt be able to xtract just dos from it, which you CAN do...

[nateklomp]

Yes, win95/98/98se are built on MSDOS 7.0(1996)/7.1(1997) and are essentially MSDOS with 32-bit extensions (32-bit support was also added Windows 3.1, although that didn't go far as it was introduced at the end of 3.1's life cycle.)

SO, if your soundcard works both in windows and msdos-mode, you're loading msdos-mode drivers. If you're also loading emm386/smartdrv/msdos mouse drivers/etc., it appears that enabling UDMA could offer a speed improvement.

From Wikipedia:

16-bit Operating environments. Although they are often thought of as just graphical user interfaces or desktops, mostly because they use MS-DOS for filesystem services, 16-bit Windows versions already have their own executable file format and provide their own device drivers (graphics, printer, mouse, keyboard and sound). Most important, from the beginning they allow the user to (non-preemptively) multi-task graphical applications, something which competitors like GEM do not offer. Finally, they implement an elaborated segment-based software virtual memory scheme, which allows to run applications larger than available memory: code segments and resources are swapped in and thrown away when useless or memory becomes scarce and data segments move in memory when a given application has relinquished processor control. Examples include Windows 1.0 (1985) and Windows 2.0 (1987) and its close relative Windows/286.

Hybrid 16/32-bit operating environments. Windows/386 introduced a 32-bit protected mode kernel and virtual machine monitor. For the duration of a Windows session, it provided a device virtualization for the disk controller, video card, keyboard, mouse, timer and interrupt controller. The user-visible consequence was that it became possible to preemptively multitask multiple MS-DOS environments in separate windows (graphical applications required switching the window to full screen mode). Windows applications were still multi-tasked cooperatively inside one of such real-mode environments. Windows 3.0 (1990) and Windows 3.1 (1992) perfected the design, notably thanks to virtual memory and loadable virtual device drivers (VxDs) which allowed them to share arbitrary devices between multitasked DOS windows. Most important, Windows applications could now run in 16-bit protected mode (when Windows was running in Standard or 386 Enhanced Mode), which gave them access to several megabytes of memory and removed the obligation to participate in the software virtual memory scheme. They still ran inside the same address space, where the segmented memory provided a degree of protection, and multi-tasked cooperatively. For Windows 3.0 Microsoft also rewrote critical operations from C into assembly, making this release faster and less memory-hungry than its predecessors.

Hybrid 16/32-bit operating system. With the introduction of 32-Bit File Access in Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows could finally stop relying on DOS for file management. Leveraging this, Windows 95 introduced Long File Names, reducing the 8.3 DOS to the role of a boot loader. MS-DOS was now bundled with Windows; this notably allowed to make it (partially) aware of long file names when its utilities were run from within Windows, but angered the competition. The most important novelty was however the possibility of running 32-bit multi-threaded preemptively multitasked graphical programs. There were three releases of Windows 95 (the first in 1995, then subsequent bug-fix versions in 1996 and 1997, only released to OEMs, which added extra features such as FAT32 support). Microsoft's next OS was Windows 98; there were two versions of this (the first in 1998 and the second, named "Windows 98 Second Edition", in 1999). This was an evolutionary enhancement, in much the same relation to Windows 95 as Windows 3.1 had been to 3.0. In 2000, Microsoft released Windows Me, which used the same core as Windows 98 but adopted the visual appearance of Windows 2000, as well as a new feature called system restore, allowing the user to set the computer's settings back to an earlier date. Compared to previous upgrades, comparatively few people bothered to switch to ME: by this time most power users had already jumped over to the NT family. This can be defended by the fact that Microsoft left little time for Windows Millenium to become popular before announcing their next version of Windows.