Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 10:10:52 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: "Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET)" <salvador AT inti DOT gov DOT ar>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: EMM386 limiting memory to 32Mb
In-Reply-To: <m0yvmDD-000S4JC@inti.gov.ar>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.980714101014.6831E-100000@is>
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On Mon, 13 Jul 1998, Salvador Eduardo Tropea (SET) wrote:

>   What's the best way to use more than 32Mb of memory under DOS 6.X?
>   I have DOS 6.22 installed and EMM386 limits the ammount of VCPI 
> memory to 32Mb. I had DOS 6.20 it did the same. I tried the EMM386 
> from W95 OSR1 and is the same again. The only one that provides more 
> than 32Mb is the one shipped with W3.11.

This is a known limitation, documented by Microsoft.

I would suggest to shell out a few bucks and buy a replacement memory
manager.  IMHO EMM386 has too many problems to be considered seriously
for DOS work.  (It matters less if you work on Windows.)  In particular,
you don't need HIMEM with alternative memory managers, and they
typically free significantly more memory below 640KB mark.

>   I'm not sure about how much reliable is to use HIMEM.SYS from DOS 
> 6.22 with EMM386 from W3.11. And I'm not sure how good is this EMM386 
> (is older than the others).

It should be good enough, if you must live with EMM386.  I don't think
you should bother about it's being older.

> And what's more strange is why in the 
> hell they reduced the functionallity (OK is M$)?

Probably for the same reason the 32-bit File Access in Windows 3.11
was much more aggressive than Windows 9X in bypassing DOS: Windows
3.11 was in essence a pre-beta release of Windows 95, whereby
Microsoft wanted to have its new features tested by a large population
without scaring the users by announcing it as a test version.  Some of
the more aggressive features have proven to be too dangerous in some
borderline cases, and were removed in Windows 9X.

>   By now I'll try it but I want to know other experiencies.
>   One important thing is that by default this EMM386 reserves 64Kb of 
> memory (I guess for W3.11 use), so I forced it to include all.

I'd guess that it reserves those 64KB for the EMS.