insufficient memory in Windows 98

I have installed windows 98 to a new hard drive as part of a new system build.  When I try to boot to Windows 98 I keep getting an error message that says: "insufficient memory to initialize Windows."

I have tried to the vcache workaround suggested by the Windows support site.  But, no joy.  I still get the insufficient memory error message.any suggestions from you guys about alternate workaround?

Motherboard: ABIT AN52.
Memory: PC2 (DDR2) 6400,2 x 1 GB (4-4-4-12), 2.2v, Patriot brand.
Graphics: Radeon HD4200.
Hard drive: Maxtor 6L120P0 250 GB.
Floppy drive: 1.44.
Optical Drive: LG 18x GSA-H54LI

Since you've found the vcache method,  you've probably also run across this one too.   Just to be sure,  I'll mention it.

Start->Run->msconfig->Advanced

Limit memory to 512M



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Does it also say:

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities

How much RAM do you have?

thank you both for your prompt replies.
Willie W: 

Since you've found the vcache method,  you've probably also run across this one too.   Just to be sure,  I'll mention it.

Start->Run->msconfig->Advanced

Limit memory to 512M

Yes I found this workaround as well on the Microsoft site.  Unfortunately it seems to require being in Windows to use and as yet I can't get into Windows.  Unless there's a way to get around being in Windows when you use msconfig?

Broni:

Does it also say:

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities

Yes it does, or something very much like that.

How much RAM do you have?

Memory: PC2 (DDR2) 6400,2 x 1 GB (4-4-4-12), 2.2v, Patriot brand.

Since you've found the vcache method,  you've probably also run across this one too.   Just to be sure,  I'll mention it.

Start->Run->msconfig->Advanced

Limit memory to 512M

Yes I found this workaround as well on the Microsoft site.  Unfortunately it seems to require being in Windows to use and as yet I can't get into Windows.  Unless there's a way to get around being in Windows when you use msconfig?

I suspected that you were not able to get that far.


That's a good question.   I wonder if it is writing to a simple text config file somewhere....   
I don't know.
Maybe somebody else does, and will jump in here.
Otherwise - it'll be Google time.   



"Memory: PC2 (DDR2) 6400,2 x 1 GB (4-4-4-12), 2.2v, Patriot brand."
One idea that comes to mind -    do you happen to have a stick of memory around that is 512M or less?     If so,  remove your 2G, and try it with less memory.
If nothing else,   try it with 1G instead of 2G.



Other idea -  are you sure that the "Win98 more than 512M of memory"  thing is the problem in the first place?      Could it be something else?

I ask, because I ran with over 512M of memory for a long time before I stumbled across the info that it might not be wise to do so with Win98.
Never once did I have a problem.

[Moderator]

Post a copy of your autoexec/bat and config.sys...

Also See What MS Says

Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.
Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

I asked, because...
That's the error, when you have 1GB, or more RAM installed on Windows 98: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184447
Of course, it can be done only by Micro$oft, to give you an error about Insufficient memory, while actually, you have too much of it...LOL

Patio:
Here's the Config.sys from the root directory:DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\setver.exe
I couldn't find an autoexec.bat file on the root directory (c:) or in the /windows subdirectory.  Could that be part of the problem, a faulty or incomplete installation of Windows that didn't create an autoexec.bat?   I'm sufficiently ignorant that I don't even know if I need an autoexec.bat to start up Windows.

WillyW

"Memory: PC2 (DDR2) 6400,2 x 1 GB (4-4-4-12), 2.2v, Patriot brand."
One idea that comes to mind -    do you happen to have a stick of memory around that is 512M or less?     If so,  remove your 2G, and try it with less memory.
If nothing else,   try it with 1G instead of 2G.

Sounds like a good idea.  However, the only memory that I have available now is two sticks of PC-100, 64 MB each.  My new motherboard is designed to take DDR-2memory up to 8 MB, and I'm not sure whether that will be backward compatible.  Does anybody know anything about that?  Sounds like it's worth a shot.  I'll give it a try and let you know what happens.

Other idea -  are you sure that the "Win98 more than 512M of memory"  thing is the problem in the first place?      Could it be something else?  I ask, because I ran with over 512M of memory for a long time before I stumbled across the info that it might not be wise to do so with Win98.
Never once did I have a problem.

Yes, I'm fairly certain that is the problem.  I encountered this  issue once before when I tried to add 2 MB of RAM to an existing Windows 98 SE system.  I got the same message and was unable to resolve it then as well.  Additionally, I have a friend who works in IT who says that this is an issue endemic to Windows 98 SE.
This is borne out by the fact that Microsoft support has two workarounds for the problem.

 Broni

Of course, it can be done only by Micro$oft, to give you an error about Insufficient memory, while actually, you have too much of it...LOL

Too true. 

Once again, thank you all for your help and your speedy replies.

Scridley54

Aren't there command-line inputs to "burn" memory?

I wondered why you would ever need them.

I briefly recall them in some revision for the A+ Essentials.

[Moderator]

How exactly did you do this new install of Win98 ? ?

That config.sys is lacking himem.sys for one...
Also i see no other device drivers present either how is this machine functioning at all ? ?
And it should have an autoexec.bat in the root of C: even if it's empty.

Is there another OS installed on this machine ?

Patio:

How exactly did you do this new install of Win98 ? ?

The usual way, I guess.  I physically assembled all the components, went into CMOS and set it all up as per the instructions that came with the motherboard documentation.  Then I used the software that came with the hard drive (MaxBlast 4) to partition and format the hard drive.  I created two equal partitions, one of which, the C drive, was to be bootable.  Then I used my Windows 98SE, CD bootable, to install Windows.  Everything went fine until it rebooted at which point I started getting the insufficient memory message.

That config.sys is lacking himem.sys for one...
Also i see no other device drivers present either how is this machine functioning at all ? ?

Obviously, it ain't functioning very well.     What device drivers should be present in config.sys and at what point are they supposed to be created during the installation process?  It's been a long time since I installed an OS or messed around with the DOS command line./i]

And it should have an autoexec.bat in the root of C: even if it's empty.

That makes sense.  It's starting to sound like the Windows installation was incomplete or flawed, isn't it?  Should I, at this point, be considering a re-installation of Windows, do you think? 
I wasn't able to use the PC 100 memory on this new motherboard as I mentioned I was going to do in my last post.  So I resorted to removing 1 GB and trying to boot to Windows with just 1 GB installed as WillieW suggested.  It did boot up to Windows, but it was pretty twitchy.I did a safe mode boot and got all sorts of really weird messages as it tried to start.  It did get into safe mode but it was super, super slow.  The time between mouse clicking or entering a function could be as long as 45 seconds to never.  When I tried to shut windows down it hung, and I had to do a hard boot.  Does this suggest anything to anyone?

Is there another OS installed on this machine ?

No.  I don't see how there could be.  As mentioned above, the drive was partitioned and formatted which should have destroyed any OS already on the drive.

Thanks for the questions and suggestions.  I'm relearning a lot that I had forgotten, and learning much that I didn't know.  We'll get this sucker fixed yet.

Scridley54

[Moderator]

Well something is wrong with this install that's for sure...
I'd drop the RAM down to just one of your 1G sticks and do a re-install paying attention to all the early prompts.
As far as device drivers they will be present after you have installed them which some should occur during the install....mouse, sound etc.

Start over and have all your drivers ready...
And you're absolutely correct...we'll get this sucker fixed !

I was under the impression that W/98 will not handle more than 512mb of ram.  See here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912

MS suggests a WORKAROUND, and i also read that you can  edit himemsys to tell it there is a limit beyond the 512MB barrier. And some say that W/98 cannot effectively handle more than 160mb ram

I have an old white box with an AMD 650mhz that  i upped to 320mb ram, and the MSI 6195 mobo says it's limit is 750gb. I ran it intensively for 6 years, and now use it as a Media player, and it is faster in boot up and basic tasks with  than my present Vista with 1.5 gb ram! 

Of course, Vista can do more, and as W/98 easily crashes when out of sys. resources,  i would suggest two safe freeware apps i found very helpful for it. You can configure TClock to show your system resources and memory load at all times, while FreeRAM XP Pro can be configured to alert you when resources drop to a defined level. http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2005/PL2005ORGANIZERS.php
http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/

...
That config.sys is lacking himem.sys for one...
Also i see no other device drivers present either how is this machine functioning at all ? ?

himem.sys should be loaded in config.sys?
I thought mem management was all handled by Win98.

I thought I remembered that config.sys here (Win98SE) is a 0KB empty file.   Went and checked.
It is.

Check your Win98 install's config.sys.    Anything in it?

And it should have an autoexec.bat in the root of C: even if it's empty.

Here,  autoexec.bat just has a line to run AVG during boot, and one more line to set the path.    I really don't know just how Windows would behave without that path statement,  i.e. empty.

I was under the impression that W/98 will not handle more than 512mb of ram.

The memory manager for Windows won't use more than 512MB, however you should be able to have more memory than that. I was running 1GB when I had Win98. Even though Win98 won't use beyond 512MB, any programs that have built in memory managers (such as Adobe Photoshop) can utilize that extra memory.

[Moderator]

Willy

Himem.sys should be loaded...
If your config.sys is empty is this a standalone Win98 install ?
There still should be an autoexec.bat...where are you looking ? ?
In the root directory ?

The tweaks for Win98SE to use more than 512 do not need to be applied until afterwards...

Himem.sys should be loaded...

by config.sys?

Beats me.   config.sys is an empty file here.   Been a while since I last installed Win98SE,  but I think I'd remember if I did anything manually to config.sys -  so I'm thinking that this is how the install made it.

If your config.sys is empty is this a standalone Win98 install ?

Yes

There still should be an autoexec.bat

There is.   I mentioned its contents here.

...where are you looking ? ?
In the root directory ?

Of course.

Why?

The tweaks for Win98SE to use more than 512 do not need to be applied until afterwards...

afterwards?     .... after what?... what are you referring to?

[Moderator]

My Win98SE install is on top of DOS 6.2...sorry about the confusion.
It inherits all device drivers i needed for DOS.
Nevermind on the device drivers.
But your saying a clean install of Win98SE has an empty config and autoexec ? ?

As to your last question i was stating that tweaking Win98 for additional memory does not have to be done at the install point...it can be addressed later.
This was in reference to the OP installing with 1G of RAM...

Sorry but i'm guilty of Old School...i've never installed Win95 or 98SE without DOS being present first.

My Win98SE install is on top of DOS 6.2...

Ah.
Dual booting?
I think I read that in another post of yours once upon a time.

sorry about the confusion.

No big deal.   

It inherits all device drivers i needed for DOS.

I could be wrong here,  but when you do that, I think whatever you've put in config.sys is dominant.  It overrides whatever Windoze would have done.
Am I on track?

Nevermind on the device drivers.
But your saying a clean install of Win98SE has an empty config and autoexec ? ?

config.sys here is empty.   And I believe it started out that way too.   I'm pretty sure I'd remember if I had ever doctored it.

Regarding autoexec.bat,   changes were made to it by some software as it installed.

Code: [Select]

C:\PROGRA~1\GRISOFT\AVGFRE~1\BOOTUP.EXE
PATH=%path%;c:\utils;"D:\Program Files\Executive Software\DiskeeperLite\"

If you eliminate AVG and DiskeeperLite  (who recommended that, eh?  )
and also eliminate my utils dir,   all you have left is the variable for the original path.    I seem to remember doing it that way when I wanted to add my utils dir.
So yes,  I think autoexec.bat was originally an empty file too.

As to your last question i was stating that tweaking Win98 for additional memory does not have to be done at the install point...it can be addressed later.
This was in reference to the OP installing with 1G of RAM...

Sorry but i'm guilty of Old School...i've never installed Win95 or 98SE without DOS being present first.

I don't think I've ever installed it over DOS.     It just worked out that way.
I have installed QEMM to manage memory for DOS,  then installed DESQView to multi-task DOS,  but that is going back a ways.   



p.s.  A quick google, and I find a few pages where they say that neither config.sys or autoexec.bat are necessary with Win98.
I have no idea if the writers are good reference though.   Didn't dig that hard.

[Moderator]

QEMM...what an awesome little utility.
Are you familiar with XTree ? ?

The test bench actually has 6 OS's on it but i'm building a new rig strictly for Vista so that will be stripped off that machine.

And you're correct on the drivers...they override Windoze and are loaded prior to the OS.

I have no idea who recommended DKLite...

 

QEMM...what an awesome little utility.
Are you familiar with XTree ? ?

XTree Gold seems to ring a bell.
Was it a file manager?    Two panes,  left and right?

If so,  I think I just played with it briefly.   Not that I disliked it,  just never stuck with it.   Can't remember what all it was supposed to do that was so wonderful.... maybe I just missed out on it.

[Moderator]

You got it...an extremely powerful File Management tool...it's where i learned all the ins and outs of OS's early on.

You got it...an extremely powerful File Management tool...it's where i learned all the ins and outs of OS's early on.

I guess I didn't understand its value.    For file copying, moving, deleting, etc. , mostly I just did it from the command line.
For editing,  I used Edit.
For reading and looking inside of zip files,  I used List.com.    Still do. 
As a matter of fact,  if I'm in it,  I'll use it to move, copy, and delete files too.
I got on to List.com early on... maybe that's why I didn't catch onto Xtree.

I probably didn't spend enough time with it too.

Hi guys.
Sorry I've not been around for awhile.  Trying to get a lot of other stuff done simultaneously and I suck at multi-tasking.
Latest news:  Got 98 to finish its install after removing one of my 1 GB sticks as suggested.  First reboot after pulling out the RAM got me nothing.  Second reboot got the install wizard back asking for my Key.  Input that and then finished the install.  That's the good news.
The bad news is that when I boot the hard drive to 98 I lose access to the DVD drive.  And I need it to install the drivers for the graphics card so I can get better than basic VGA.
It's just one thing after another, eh?
At that point I realized that I needed to take a step back or risk taking a sledge hammer to my new project.  Gave me a chance to catch up on some other things I needed to do.
Any Ideas, amigos?
 

[Moderator]

You'll need to track down some Win98 drivers for that DVD from the manuf.....
Do you already have the vid drivers ?

patio:

You'll need to track down some Win98 drivers for that DVD from the manuf.....

Good idea.  I'll give it a try and let you know.

Do you already have the vid drivers ?

Yeah.  They came with the Video Graphics card.  On a CD.

Attached are autoexec.bat and config.sys files for a clean W98SE install.

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[Moderator]

Your attachments are empty...

Your attachments are empty...

   Don't know what happend - try again!

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ianbel
Thanks for the files.  I'll compare them against the autoexec.bat, and config.sys files which were created when I finally got 98 to finish its installation.  I checked them once already, in DOS, but I don't remember what was in them.  If I recall correctly the files were pretty small and only had one or two lines in them.

I went to the website of the  manufacturer for my  DVD writer as suggested.  The bad news is that I couldn't find any windows 98 drivers for this device, nor do they seem to have much support for the device at all.  Limited run device, maybe?  The good news is that, according to what little support they do offer, Windows 98, XP, and VISTA  should support it with their generic drivers.

Perhaps once I have installed these new files everything will (magically) work correctly.

I'll give it a shot and let you guys know what happens.

Once again, thanks for all your help.

To all of you kind and helpful types who tried to help me get past a really bad Win98 install ...patio, willyW, ianbell, Broni, Sid, Daniel1212, quaxo... Thanks.
I really appreciate all of you. 
Unfortunately, sometimes you just have to admit it when you're licked.  I'm licked.  A couple of times I got so frustrated trying to get WIN98 to behave that I started to smack the computer around.  How pointless is that?
Went out and got a bootable XP CD and had the little sucker humming like a top on the first try.  Even got it to work with my full 2 gigs of RAM.  All the drivers for my graphics card and motherboard are loaded up and work just as they're supposed to.
Thanks again, folks. 

[Moderator]

Good to hear you are up and running...stop by anytime !

I just wanted to thank you people for all your wealth of information. I was stumped and I had the same error message for insufficient memory after I loaded 98. I just took out 1 stick of memory and it ran fine. I had 2 Gig dropped to 1.


Thanx,

Cindy Tessier

[Moderator]

That's certainly good news and Welcome to CH ! !

I asked, because...
That's the error, when you have 1GB, or more RAM installed on Windows 98: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184447
Of course, it can be done only by Micro$oft, to give you an error about Insufficient memory, while actually, you have too much of it...LOL

I had the Windows 98 startup problem with 2 GB of ram and the advice in the link above solved it for me, i.e., adding "MaxPhysPage=30000" to the [386Enh] section of system.ini. (I had previously tried removing half the ram, but then the machine wouldn't even boot the BIOS for some reason.)

Unfortunately I still had the problem of not being able to open a DOS window, so I had to add a MaxFileCache entry in the [VCache] section of system.ini, as discussed at this link which was also posted earlier in the thread: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912. I used a value of 262144. (I couldn't use 524288 because that caused a new startup problem.)

A MinFileCache entry turned out not to be necessary, but I did have to remove the fixed paging file size I was previously using for virtual memory, and let Windows manage that on its own. That, in combination with the MaxFileCache entry did the trick for the DOS windows.

So now I can run my legacy games again!

  My Computer Mainboard Gigabyte G41, CPU Core Due 3.0, RAM 2GB, I install Win98SE but I see error Quit one or more memory-resident...I search error throught google and I try follow guide some forum but not ok! I think install Win98SE have more option install. I try command (example): C:\win98Se\Setup /? and I try: Setup /im ---> yeah ok I install Win98SE success with 2GB! My English is bad because I'm Vietnamese 

My Computer Mainboard Gigabyte G41, CPU Core Due 3.0, RAM 2GB, I install Win98SE but I see error Quit one or more memory-resident...I search error throught google and I try follow guide some forum but not ok! I think install Win98SE have more option install. I try command (example): C:\win98Se\Setup /? and I try: Setup /im ---> yeah ok I install Win98SE success with 2GB! My English is bad because I'm Vietnamese 

Please start your own topic.

I found I was still having problems after applying the fixes above, so I ended up using another solution: Virtual PC 2004, which is available free from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D58729D-DFA8-40BF-AFAF-20BCB7F01CD1&displaylang=en

You install this under a later operating system, such as Windows 2000 or XP, and it lets you specify how much RAM the virtual PC will have available to it, which solves the problem. I used the 2004 version because it runs under Windows XP, but later versions are available too. There are a number of legacy games that I was able to get running this way, with a couple of exceptions.

Here is an article that has a table showing compatiblility of various versions with various operating systems, and links for where to download them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Virtual_PC

I found this set of instructions helpful:

http://www.metzomagic.com/showArticle.php?fileName=/int/help/VirtualPC2007FAQ.html&articleType=Steves+XP+Games+Corner&title=metzomagic.com+Virtual+PC+2007+FAQ

I installed both Windows 95 and 98 using those instructions, but with 95 it was also necessary to apply the second tip from this blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/02/15/372846.aspx