Lost Memory Can Be Brought Back With A Little Tweaking
The Age
Monday October 10, 1994
I HAVE just purchased a CD-ROM drive and installed it into my 486-DX4 computer. It works well but one program will not load due to ``Insufficient Memory". I have 8MB of memory and have enclosed the AUTOEXEC.BAT and the CONFIG.SYS files. Can you tell me what needs to be altered? M. Hall, Ringwood.
FROM your listing it is obvious that you used MEMMAKER to load all your programs into upper memory, but after installing the CD-ROM the new software drivers were not put into upper memory by the installation program. (Virtually no installation process will do this automatically).
In your case, you have adequate upper memory left so all you have to do is run MEMMAKER again to regain the lost memory.
If other readers who are using DOS 5 have experienced this problem, then this process can be achieved manually. Start by typing MEM /C MORE to see what programs are not being loaded into upper memory.
Then, using an editor such as EDIT from DOS or NOTEPAD from Windows, edit CONFIG.SYS and alter DEVICE= to read DEVICEHIGH= for the required programs. Then edit AUTOEXEC.BAT and add LOADHIGH in front of any memory resident program such as CMDKE43.SYS.
In order to have upper memory a 386 processor or higher is required and the following lines must be in CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:DOSHIMEM.SYS.
DEVICE=C:DOSEMM386.EXE. DOS=HIGH,UMB.
Windows error.
I HAVE come across the message from Windows ``This application has violated System Integrity and will be terminated." I was wondering what this means and why it occurs? N. Wills, Melbourne.
THIS message means that some part of a Windows program or some reserved memory has been altered and Windows cannot function normally.
This occurs when a program has written to memory to an address that it is not supposed to be accessed.
The offending program can be a DOS or Windows application or even a device driver loaded at boot time.
To eliminate such a problem takes time. If this is a DOS program, try adding one line in the (386Enh) section of SYSTEM.INI. This line should read: EMMEXCLUDE=A000EFFF.
If this does not fix the problem, eliminate all non-essential lines from AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS by inserting the word REM in front of the line. Reboot and run Windows. If everything works, restore the lines one at a time to determine what is causing the problem.
Remove double space.
MY CURRENT hard disk is installed with MS-DOS Double Space and is nearly full. I am thinking of getting a second hard disk installed but I would like to remove Double Space from the present disk as it slows down operations a little. Can you please tell me if I can do that without having to reformat the hard disk? C. Wang, Moorabbin.
REMOVING the compressed drive will destroy all the files from that drive. In your case this should not be a problem as after you have had the second hard disk installed, copy all files from the first drive to the second drive. I am assuming that the second drive is larger than the first compressed partition.
If you cannot copy all data to the new drive, then you must backup on to floppies and then restore to the new disk. To minimise the number of floppies used, copy a part of the data on to the uncompressed partition (often set up as drive H:) as this will not be affected.
Delete these files just copied from the compressed volume. If the uncompressed partition is not of adequate size, check if the uncompressed partition contains a permanent Windows swap file. Delete this file and free up many megabytes to assist with the copying.
(To check if Windows uses a permanent swap file, from DOS, type DIR X: /AH where X: is your uncompressed drive.) The swap file is called 386SPART.PAR. To delete this, type: ATTRIB X:386SPART.PAR -H -S to remove the hidden and system attributes. Then type DEL X:386SPART.PAR to remove it. If you run Windows now, you will get an error message that can be ignored. When Windows is reinstalled on the new or existing drive, it should recreate a swap file that can later be modified, if required.
Funny characters.
I AM having a problem printing to an OKI OL400 LED Page printer using Word 6 on Windows 3.1. I have no problems printing to a Canon or Epson printers. How can I check whether the printer driver has been installed? I seem to have installed an OKI OL400 printer but it still prints funny characters. The manual states to try HP printer but I still print funny characters. Could you pease advise? F. Lee, Kew.
IT IS most likely that the printer driver supplied needs to be be updated as there are known problems with early OKI printer drivers. To determine whether or not the problem is in your document, do a print preview and zoom in on the problem area. If it looks OK on the screen, then you should obtain a new driver. Your best option is to ask your dealer for an update. He should already have one, otherwise he can order an update. There should be no charge, or a minimal charge, for this service.
If you would like your questions answered, fax them to George Skarbek on (03)8665486 or write to him care of Computer Age, 250 Spencer Street, Melbourne, 3000. He can be contacted via the Internet at gskarbek(AT)melbpc.org.au, but please be aware that due to the volume of inquiries it is not possible to reply individually to users.
© 1994 The Age