Expanded Memory on XP?

T

Toller

Years ago I bought a XP desktop and found I could not play an old Dos game
on it (Masters of Orion). It reported that I needed expanded memory, even
though I was setting up expanded memory. Well, they warned that some Dos
games wouldn't work, so I forgot about it.

I later bought two other XP desktops and found it ran just fine.

Then I bought a XP laptop and couldn't get expanded memory. Since I knew it
had worked on other machines, I tried everything; including setting it up
identically to the ones that worked, including moving the config.nt and
autoexec.nt files over. But nothing worked.

Is expanded memory in XP hardware dependent? Any suggestions for how to get
around this? I tried a dos emulator, but it is horribly slow. I suppose
the other option is to buy partitioning software and load W98, but I hate to
spend the money just for this.

Thanks.
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
Years ago I bought a XP desktop and found I could not play an old Dos game
on it (Masters of Orion). It reported that I needed expanded memory, even
though I was setting up expanded memory. Well, they warned that some Dos
games wouldn't work, so I forgot about it.

I later bought two other XP desktops and found it ran just fine.

Then I bought a XP laptop and couldn't get expanded memory. Since I knew it
had worked on other machines, I tried everything; including setting it up
identically to the ones that worked, including moving the config.nt and
autoexec.nt files over. But nothing worked.

Is expanded memory in XP hardware dependent? Any suggestions for how to get
around this? I tried a dos emulator, but it is horribly slow. I suppose
the other option is to buy partitioning software and load W98, but I hate to
spend the money just for this.

Thanks.

You might try Virtual PC. It's free...for now anyway.

gls858
 
T

Toller

You might try Virtual PC. It's free...for now anyway.
I downloaded it and set up a virtual PC. I suppose the first thing to do is
to get an OS on it, but it is not real clear how I do that. Is there a
good explanation somewhere?

I have a W98SE CD for computers without OS; presumably that is what I need.
Thanks
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
I downloaded it and set up a virtual PC. I suppose the first thing to do is
to get an OS on it, but it is not real clear how I do that. Is there a
good explanation somewhere?

I have a W98SE CD for computers without OS; presumably that is what I need.
Thanks
Someone else may have to jump in here. I haven't used a VM for a long
time. I did notice that the doc at the link below does give some info
on installing the guest operating system. Look for a Word doc in the
download section in the middle of the page labeled VirtualPC2007.doc

gls858
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
I downloaded it and set up a virtual PC. I suppose the first thing to do is
to get an OS on it, but it is not real clear how I do that. Is there a
good explanation somewhere?

I have a W98SE CD for computers without OS; presumably that is what I need.
Thanks
Someone else may have to jump in here. I haven't used a VM for a long
time. I did notice that the doc at the link below does give some info
on installing the guest operating system. Look for a Word doc in the
download section in the middle of the page labeled VirtualPC2007.doc

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/appcompat.mspx

gls858
 
T

Toller

gls858 said:
Someone else may have to jump in here. I haven't used a VM for a long
time. I did notice that the doc at the link below does give some info
on installing the guest operating system. Look for a Word doc in the
download section in the middle of the page labeled VirtualPC2007.doc

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/appcompat.mspx
The document said to install W98 the same way you would install it on a
regular computer. So I booted the computer, pressed F11, booted off the
CDRom and told it to install the W98. Unfortunately this was my regular
computer, and would have wiped out the existing OS.
Obviously I have to do it while booting the virtual computer, but it is not
obvious how THAT is done.
If anyone knows...
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
The document said to install W98 the same way you would install it on a
regular computer. So I booted the computer, pressed F11, booted off the
CDRom and told it to install the W98. Unfortunately this was my regular
computer, and would have wiped out the existing OS.
Obviously I have to do it while booting the virtual computer, but it is not
obvious how THAT is done.
If anyone knows...

did you create a virtual machine first? Check this section of the doc

Creating and Configuring the Virtual Machine

I'll be at home soon I'll pull Virtual PC down and see what I can figure
out. I've been wanting to check it out anyway.

gls858
 
G

gls858

gls858 said:
did you create a virtual machine first? Check this section of the doc

Creating and Configuring the Virtual Machine

I'll be at home soon I'll pull Virtual PC down and see what I can figure
out. I've been wanting to check it out anyway.

gls858

Downloaded Virtual PC 2007. I set up a virtual machine, clicked start
with the XP CD in the drive (had to tell it which drive) partitioned a
portion of free space on my second drive and loaded XP. Seems to be
running OK. I haven't tested any games and I still can't get it to
connect to the net but XP is loaded and running.

gls858
 
T

Toller

Downloaded Virtual PC 2007. I set up a virtual machine, clicked start
with the XP CD in the drive (had to tell it which drive) partitioned a
portion of free space on my second drive and loaded XP. Seems to be
running OK. I haven't tested any games and I still can't get it to connect
to the net but XP is loaded and running.
I hate sounding dim, but I
1) Downloaded Virtual PC 2007
2) Set up a virtual machine
3) Clicked start

After that it flashes a few thing that go by too fast to read. Then a page
comes up that says "Argon PXE Boot Agent etc. etc.", and then "Client MAC
ADDDR, etc. etc."
Then there is a straight line that just keeps rotating.
After a couple minutes it tells me to reboot.
I tried just about everything in the pull down menus, but nothing works.
How do I partition it and load the OS?

Years ago I used to be a programmer. Imagine that!
 
T

Toller

Downloaded Virtual PC 2007. I set up a virtual machine, clicked start with
the XP CD in the drive (had to tell it which drive) partitioned a
portion of free space on my second drive and loaded XP. Seems to be
running OK. I haven't tested any games and I still can't get it to connect
to the net but XP is loaded and running.
Thanks, I think I have it now. Stupid thing only gave me 4MB of RAM and it
needs 16MB to load W98, but hopefully I can figure out how to fix that.
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
Thanks, I think I have it now. Stupid thing only gave me 4MB of RAM and it
needs 16MB to load W98, but hopefully I can figure out how to fix that.
In the virtual PC console click on settings then memory. You can change
the amount of ram allocated. I don't know how much RAM you have but 16mb
seems pretty slim. If you have plenty I'd allocate at least 64 or even
128. More RAM allocated faster VM.

I finally got the Internet connection running by using the NAT setting
for the NIC.

gls858
 
T

Toller

gls858 said:
In the virtual PC console click on settings then memory. You can change
the amount of ram allocated. I don't know how much RAM you have but 16mb
seems pretty slim. If you have plenty I'd allocate at least 64 or even
128. More RAM allocated faster VM.
No, the little slider runs between 0 and 0. When I put 64 in the space up
above it just ignores it and reverts to 0.
ARGHHHHH!
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
No, the little slider runs between 0 and 0. When I put 64 in the space up
above it just ignores it and reverts to 0.
ARGHHHHH!
How much RAM do you have?

gls858
 
G

gls858

Toller said:
512mb, which is supposed to be enough for anything
I see that you made it over to the virtual PC group and found out that
isn't true :)

A gig of RAM is almost a minimum these days. Good thing is that it's not
real expensive now.

gls858
 

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