EMS Unavailable at MS-DOS Prompt in Standard Mode

ID: Q87356

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows versions 3.1, 3.11

SUMMARY

Pages 550-551 of the "Microsoft Windows User Guide" version 3.1 incorrectly indicate that the EMM386.EXE memory manager can be used to give MS-DOS applications expanded memory in standard mode.

However, in standard mode, EMM386.EXE is disabled.

MORE INFORMATION

Page 550 incorrectly states:

You can run the [MS-DOS] application in standard mode, using EMM386.EXE to simulate expanded memory.

Page 551 incorrectly tells you how to set up EMM386.EXE for use with MS-DOS applications in "standard mode" that use expanded memory:

Add a command line for EMM386.EXE to your CONFIG.SYS file.
   ...
   device=c:\windows\emm386.exe 512 

This command line is supposed to allow EMM386.EXE to set up 512K of RAM memory as expanded memory for use with MS-DOS applications requiring expanded memory. However, this does not work. If you shell out to MS-DOS and run the MEM command (MS-DOS 4.01 and 5.0) or run MSD.EXE, you will see that there is no expanded memory available.

MS-DOS applications can use EMM386.EXE for expanded memory when Windows is not running.

KBCategory: kbother kbdocerr
KBSubcategory: winmem win31

Additional query words: 3.10 3.11 doc err NoWin4

Keywords :
Version : WINDOWS:3.1,3.11
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type :