windows/mscdex conflict
7 messages in this thread
Jack,
I have the weirdest problem with my new CD-ROM and Windows. It started
just after I installed my CD-ROM and it happened for the first time after I
loaded MS Bookshelf and rebooted. The computer would go through all of
config.sys and autoexec.bat, show the Windows startup screen, and then show a
distorted version of it and go immediately to a cold boot.
I thought it was related to the Word 2.0c/Bookshelf cd because it would
hang only when that cd was in the drive. Then it started happening with other
cd's. Today it happened with no cd in the drive.
I thought of something Jerry Pournelle wrote in March Byte, and added
an /e after mscdex. Sure enough, it now works fine. Take the /e out and it
hangs. Put it back in and all's well.
The strangest thing is this: I have no expanded memory. At bootup
when it gets to mscdex in autoexec it says "expanded memory unavailable, mscdex
version 2.21." Even so it does the trick.
– Kevin
Well, everybody really has some expanded memory if they have a stock 640K
system with video; it's possible that it's sticking itself in that small unused
kernel above 640K but before the 704K video kick-in. Having now waged the
battle of SCSI-2, though, I can tell you that much of this is like Chinese
food–if it tastes good, don't ask what the little black things are. By the
same token, if it works, don't question it.
Sounds like you're confusing Expanded Memory with Upper Memory. Everyone with
video has a form of Upper Memory. Not everyone has Expanded Memory. Upper
Memory is memory located at addresses between A000 and FFFF (between 640K and
1024K). Expanded Memory is memory that has no fixed memory address, but is
swapped into and out of a portion of Upper Memory by a combination of special
memory controller hardware and software.
MSCDEX can use Expanded Memory. It cannot, by itself, use raw Upper Memory.
Well, yes, you're right. I'd forgotten. My memory manager CAN use the upper
memory and I'd forgotten that this isn't a default.
Re Chinese food and the little black things. You should ask what they are;
otherwise, you may be eating dead FLIES without knowing it.
Yeah, but monosodium glutamate makes EVERYTHING taste better.
Only in strange restaurants. I trust the chefs I usually patronize.
At least, if they're letting flies get in, I've never suffered any ill
effects from the added protein….