What does the "DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE" line in config.sys do?

[Sukhoi]

I just bought Drive Image 4.0, and it wants me to delete the DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE line from my config.sys file before I try to image to a CD-RW. Will it cause any problems if I leave this line out permanently, or should I just take it out before I do a drive image? I'm running Win98SE, and I have SB Live! SB16 emulation turned on if it matters. Thanks!

 

[Taz4158]

You can safely delete it.

 

[FOBSIDE]

what does that do exactly? i got an EMM386 error on a cleanly installed Dell at work. I disabled that line like Dell told me to but i still dont know what it does.

 

[JaiKnight]

It's a memory manager if I remember correctly, used to be used in DOS. It let you configure what drivers you loaded into which portion of memory, and how you used your scarce RAM back in those days

 

[JellyBaby]

Momma-meeya! A whole new generation that does not know of conventional, expanded/extendend memory! Damn I'm getting old.

Actually, Creative's SB Live! series still needs emm386.exe if you want SB 16 emulation for DOS games while in Windows. If that's not a problem, just REM or remove that line in the config.sys file...Windows has memory management built-in!

 

[Stosh]

Back in Ye Olden Days there used to be an operating system called DOS. (Disk Operating System, I think). The way DOS was written, it could not recognize any memory above 640k. They figured 640k was so massive, nobody would ever need any more. What dunderheads...

emm386.exe is an extended memory manager that allows programs running under dos, to access the higher memory blocks. If I remember right, from 640 to 1mb was called EMS , and everything above 1mb was XMS.

Not really needed unless you plan on running some legacy dos programs or games..

 

[Sukhoi]

Cool, thanks for the info guys.

 

[Chuck]

hehe, those where the good old days. When you had to rearange your config.sys and autoexec.bat to get every k you could... heheh...

 

[JellyBaby]

Chuck,

I recall having written several batch files that allowed me to reboot DOS under a certain configuration just to run a certain game. I had a "normal boot", "general games boot", "nasty games boot", and a host of others. At one point I had a boot for each specific game!

Some games ran better using himem/emm386....others ran better with qemm386...and still others had their own memory managers. It was a nightmare...not that today's Win 9x systems are much better.

 

[Mday]

if you don't use DOS at all, your config.sys and autoexec.bat should either be blank, or nonexistent.

 

[The Mudman]

Mday, What about Dos games in a window or using the command prompt?

 

[Chuck]

DOS window stuff just uses all of windows drivers (memory managers, mouse, etc..)

For a comand prompt you will need to specify what you want. Remember that Win 95/98 just runs on top of (what was) DOS.. except they've renamed the 'DOS' part to 'Windows' so that it all can be called an OS. But deep deep down, it's still basically the same as o'll Win 3.1 -- The windows part is just a nice addon.

 

[Moonbender]

Same with WinME, they're just learning to hide DOS better. Don't know how much DOS there is in Win2000, though.
On the other hand, we shouldn't forget that Win9x is more than just a file manager for DOS. There are new concepts, a new driver model, 32bit program as well as a new file system introduced with it. Oh yeah, and the new memory management that was already mentioned above.

 

[LongTimePCUser]

The reason that emm386 was needed for DOS was that a long, long time ago in a place far, far away, the head of a certain software company (Bill Gates) stated publically that 640 KB was such a huge amount of memory that no PC would ever need more than that. So he located a video buffer at the 640 KB address and effectively limited the amount of memory that DOS could address. And the next generation built expanded memory and extended memory and then they did Windows and tried to hide that stuff from us.

 

[LongTimePCUser]

And if you want a good laugh you should open a DOS window and type mem. This displays the amount of "convential" , "upper" and "extended" memory in your system. This command (mem.exe) is still there in Windows ME which is not supposed to have a DOS mode. I suspect that it might even be available in NT or Win2K.

 

[JaiKnight]

Haha, yup it's still there, although displayed a little differently