Re file size

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Jordan and Robert are right (of course) in saying that the problem is
probably your spec for your TEMP file. But it might also help to have a
config.sys file that loads EMM386. That will give you access to expanded
memory, which I know Xy 4 uses, but forget whether III can. Even if it
can't, if you're loading any 16-bit hardware drivers (which I should
imagine you must be on a laptop), you want EMM386 so you can LOAD them
High, and get them out of converntional (under 640 K) RAM, thus freeing
it for Xy and its files. A further wrinkle is that though IO.SYS
automatically loads HIMEM.SYS (a real-mode driver) even if it's not
mentioned in config.sys, IF you're going to load EMM386.EXE in
CONFIG.SYS, you have to include the command
device-himem.sys
in CONFIG.SYS, before
device=EMM386.EXE
That's because IO.SYS looks in CONFIG.SYS _before_ it automatically loads
HIMEM.SYS, and chokes on the command to load EMM386.EXE, since HIMEM.SYS
isn't loaded yet.
(Thanks to Livington & Straub's Windows 98 Secrets for that bit of
info.)

So a CONFIG.SYS file should read something like this:
device=c:\[path here if it's not in the root]himem.sys
device=c:\[path here if it's not in the root]emm386.exe ram
dos=high,UMB
devicehigh=[and here include any 16-bit drivers that you need]

Jordan's MEM command will show your memory usage. An alternative version
uses /p rather than |MORE (easier to type, at least for me, but chacun a
son gout--and I'm horrifying my father's shade by omitting the grave and
circonflex, because we've seen that the UPENN server sometimes chokes on
accents).

Unfortunately, if you include commands in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT,
they'll run when Windows loads too. And with only 48 Mb, that's going to
be pretty tight for 98 (first or SE?) One solution would be to create a
bootfloppy with your DOS config.sys and autoexec.bat, and boot from that
when you're going to run DOS. Then boot from the hard drive, with no
Config.sys and autoexec.bat, when you want to run Windows. There's
another workaround, but it's a goshawful kludge that involves booting to
Win, then doing a warm reboot to a special DOS session with its own
parameters.

If you're going to boot from a floppy, you might want to hunt around and
see if you can get a copy of NOvell DOS 7 on e-bay or from a liquidator.
That's what they always ran Xy on at TTG, and what I used before I was
dragged (kicking and screaming) into the morass of Redmond.

Hope this helps. And yes, your first post got through to me OK. (As does
too much rubbish. Spam, grr.)
Patricia