Word 6.0c and Windows 3.11

[JSM175]

I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.

any assistance would be appreciated

[Non scrivetemi]

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

Have you tried 64MB or 128MB?

[Poutnik]

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

In Windows 3.x insufficient memory often means
not physical memory itself,
but lack of "resources" - fix amount of 2 * 64kB memory,
allocated mostly to GUI and system graphical resources.

No matter how fast CPU is, and how much memory it has,
these resources are bottleneck of windows 3.x system.

There are utilities, either system or 3rd party ones,
monitoring these resources.

[d d]

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007.

Can I ask why you'd want to do that?

[Poutnik]

Post by d d

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007.

Can I ask why you'd want to do that?

He may have licence only for old Word,
but I think it could run in XP
under proper compatibility settings( never tried ).

[Robert Comer]

Post by Poutnik
He may have licence only for old Word,
but I think it could run in XP
under proper compatibility settings( never tried ).

Not if he's running a 64-bit host OS -- no 16-bit subsystem any more.
--
Bob Comer



On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:24:49 +0200, Poutnik

Post by Poutnik

Post by d d

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007.

Can I ask why you'd want to do that?

He may have licence only for old Word,
but I think it could run in XP
under proper compatibility settings( never tried ).

[Poutnik]

Post by Robert Comer

Post by Poutnik
He may have licence only for old Word,
but I think it could run in XP
under proper compatibility settings( never tried ).

Not if he's running a 64-bit host OS -- no 16-bit subsystem any more.

Of course, that is why I run Virtual W2KPRO, my previuos OS.

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.

Firstly, DOS is a 16-bit operating system and Windows 3.x is a 16-bit
operating environment. As such, they have a practical memory limit of 16MB,
though this can be increased with expanded and extended memory mapping:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/84388

However, under normal circumstances, 16-bit applications run in the first
1MB of RAM. But, a fair bit of this is reserved and/or used by the OS anyway
so, if the machine is poorly configured, there may not be enough application
memory for Word to start. You can check this by launching a DOS prompt and
running the mem command. If the amount of free memory is below, say, 450K
then you will need to look at optimising the VM's CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT files to free up some application memory by moving as many of
the drivers and utilities into UMBs (upper memory blocks) as possible. DOS
(and, therefore, Windows 3.x) requires application memory to be contiguous
(i.e. in one single block) and UMBs are areas above the 640k memory boundary
which applications can not normally use, but drivers can be configured to
load there instead of in the default application memory...

[David Wilkinson]

Post by Mark Rae [MVP]
Firstly, DOS is a 16-bit operating system and Windows 3.x is a 16-bit
operating environment. As such, they have a practical memory limit of
16MB, though this can be increased with expanded and extended memory
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/84388
However, under normal circumstances, 16-bit applications run in the
first 1MB of RAM. But, a fair bit of this is reserved and/or used by the
OS anyway so, if the machine is poorly configured, there may not be
enough application memory for Word to start. You can check this by
launching a DOS prompt and running the mem command. If the amount of
free memory is below, say, 450K then you will need to look at optimising
the VM's CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to free up some application
memory by moving as many of the drivers and utilities into UMBs (upper
memory blocks) as possible. DOS (and, therefore, Windows 3.x) requires
application memory to be contiguous (i.e. in one single block) and UMBs
are areas above the 640k memory boundary which applications can not
normally use, but drivers can be configured to load there instead of in
the default application memory...

When I tried to load Windows 98 on a new machine a few years ago (for software
testing purposes), it said there was not enough memory. Actually, I think there
was too much (1 GB I think).

This is when I started to learn about VPC. So much more convenient for testing,
anyway.

Maybe "too much is too little" is the problem here?

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Post by David Wilkinson
When I tried to load Windows 98 on a new machine a few years ago (for
software testing purposes), it said there was not enough memory. Actually,
I think there was too much (1 GB I think).
This is when I started to learn about VPC. So much more convenient for
testing, anyway.

No argument there... Apart from Windows (!) and Visual Studio.NET, VPC is
the most useful piece of business software I have...

Post by David Wilkinson
Maybe "too much is too little" is the problem here?

Possibly - there should be no need whatsoever to allocate more than 16MB to
a VM running a 16-bit OS...

[JSM175]

After running the mem command the system tells me I have 515k free memory
under 1MB

Intrestingly enough, I forgot to mention, every so often Word will load but
next time I start the virtual machine and windows it will once again tell me
there is not enough memory.

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

After running the mem command the system tells me I have 515K free memory
under 1MB

That's definitely enough free RAM to run 16-bit Word...

Intrestingly enough, I forgot to mention, every so often Word will load but
next time I start the virtual machine and windows it will once again tell me
there is not enough memory.

Hmm - that's curious... Next time it happens, could you please check the
amount of available RAM at that precise moment? I'd be interested to know if
it's different...

[JSM175]

Ok here's some more information:

after giving me the insufficient memory error I also get:

"Winword caused a general protection fault in module winword.exe at 00e7:01bd"
or once I recieved:
"Winword caused a general protection fault in module winword.exe at 00e7:01c1"


In addition, I had one of those fleeting moments when word would run and
inside the program manager it told me I had 48,690 KB free and system
resources were 73% free. The mem command said with wfwg 3.11 and word 6.0c
there was 501k ram below 1MB available.

Post by Mark Rae [MVP]

After running the mem command the system tells me I have 515K free memory
under 1MB

That's definitely enough free RAM to run 16-bit Word...

Intrestingly enough, I forgot to mention, every so often Word will load but
next time I start the virtual machine and windows it will once again tell me
there is not enough memory.

Hmm - that's curious... Next time it happens, could you please check the
amount of available RAM at that precise moment? I'd be interested to know if
it's different...
--
Mark Rae
ASP.NET MVP
http://www.markrae.net

[C A Upsdell <""cupsdell\"@">]

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

Don't trust the error message. It was common for old apps to report
insufficient memory when the actual problem was related to something else.

[JSM175]

Do you have any ideas what it could be then?

I figured that it was something with the machine being on virtual pc 2007
but I have no idea what it could be.

Post by C A Upsdell <""cupsdell\"@">

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

Don't trust the error message. It was common for old apps to report
insufficient memory when the actual problem was related to something else.

[C A Upsdell <""cupsdell\"@">]

Post by JSM175

Post by C A Upsdell <""cupsdell\"@">

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

Don't trust the error message. It was common for old apps to report
insufficient memory when the actual problem was related to something else.

Do you have any ideas what it could be then?
I figured that it was something with the machine being on virtual pc 2007
but I have no idea what it could be.

If it were 15 years ago, I might have been able to help. But it has
been a long, long time since I used Windows 3.11, and a long time since
I used Word 6, so I have forgotten most of what I once knew.

My suggestion is simply not to focus too much on the error message.
Look more broadly at other factors, e.g. CONFIG.SYS issues, memory
manager issues, font issues, etc.

Trying to first install and run a simpler program might be helpful: if
it encounters a similar problem, it might produce a more informative
error message.

[GoneToPlaid]

Virtual PC 2007 does not create any free memory in the upper memory blocks
(UMBs). The only stuff in the UMBs are simulated ROM images and no RAM. This
is why himem.sys and emm386 either fail with error codes or fail to create
any additional free memory under 1MB. I haven't done extensive testing with
various OS's, but it appears that Windows 9X is the best way to go if you
want to run DOS apps in Virtual PC 2007 since on my setup there is just over
600K of free memory for running DOS apps.

[jorgensen]

That is not correct. You can run MSD.EXE to check it.

I have a win311 installation with loadhigh and UMB working.

device=himem.sys
device=emm386.exe noems ram
dos=high,umb

That is giving 550k free memory, and according to msd it could be tweaked
somewhat more.

Post by GoneToPlaid
Virtual PC 2007 does not create any free memory in the upper memory blocks
(UMBs). The only stuff in the UMBs are simulated ROM images and no RAM. This
is why himem.sys and emm386 either fail with error codes or fail to create
any additional free memory under 1MB. I haven't done extensive testing with
various OS's, but it appears that Windows 9X is the best way to go if you
want to run DOS apps in Virtual PC 2007 since on my setup there is just over
600K of free memory for running DOS apps.

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Post by GoneToPlaid
Virtual PC 2007 does not create any free memory in the upper memory blocks
(UMBs). The only stuff in the UMBs are simulated ROM images and no RAM. This
is why himem.sys and emm386 either fail with error codes or fail to create
any additional free memory under 1MB.

That is incorrect. Below are the results of mem /c from an MS-DOS prompt from Windows for Workgroups 3.11 / DOS 6.22:

Modules using memory below 1 MB:

Name Total = Conventional + Upper Memory
-------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
MSDOS 17,293 (17K) 17,293 (17K) 0 (0K)
HIMEM 1,120 (1K) 1,120 (1K) 0 (0K)
EMM386 4,144 (4K) 4,144 (4K) 0 (0K)
IFSHLP 3,872 (4K) 3,872 (4K) 0 (0K)
COMMAND 3,008 (3K) 3,008 (3K) 0 (0K)
DC21X4 42,704 (42K) 42,704 (42K) 0 (0K)
WIN 2,000 (2K) 2,000 (2K) 0 (0K)
win386 58,976 (58K) 24,208 (24K) 34,768 (34K)
COMMAND 3,120 (3K) 3,120 (3K) 0 (0K)
NDISHLP 1,440 (1K) 0 (0K) 1,440 (1K)
DISPLAY 8,304 (8K) 0 (0K) 8,304 (8K)
CDROM 4,272 (4K) 0 (0K) 4,272 (4K)
PROTMAN 400 (0K) 0 (0K) 400 (0K)
SMARTDRV 29,024 (28K) 0 (0K) 29,024 (28K)
KEYB 6,944 (7K) 0 (0K) 6,944 (7K)
MSCDEX 28,288 (28K) 0 (0K) 28,288 (28K)
Free 553,728 (541K) 553,728 (541K) 0 (0K)

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total = Used + Free
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Conventional 655,360 101,632 553,728
Upper 113,440 113,440 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS) 15,549,664 14,501,088 1,048,576
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Total memory 16,318,464 14,716,160 1,602,304

Total under 1 MB 768,800 215,072 553,728

Largest executable program size 553,712 (541K)
Largest free upper memory block 0 (0K)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

[GoneToPlaid]

Hi Mark,

I was testing using NWDOS7. That old OS for some reason can't see any
available memory in the UMBs, although it does see the ROMs. Thus NWDOS7's
HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE don't work. NWDOS7's HIMEM.SYS reports that it
"Cannot control address line A20." NWDOS7's EMM386.EXE generates a GPF with
the message "General Protection Exception from V86 Mode Process: Root" and a
stack dump of various registers.

Do you have any ideas for me to try? I pretty much tried all the various
options for EMM386.

:)

Post by Mark Rae [MVP]

Post by GoneToPlaid
Virtual PC 2007 does not create any free memory in the upper memory blocks
(UMBs). The only stuff in the UMBs are simulated ROM images and no RAM. This
is why himem.sys and emm386 either fail with error codes or fail to create
any additional free memory under 1MB.

Name Total = Conventional + Upper Memory
-------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
MSDOS 17,293 (17K) 17,293 (17K) 0 (0K)
HIMEM 1,120 (1K) 1,120 (1K) 0 (0K)
EMM386 4,144 (4K) 4,144 (4K) 0 (0K)
IFSHLP 3,872 (4K) 3,872 (4K) 0 (0K)
COMMAND 3,008 (3K) 3,008 (3K) 0 (0K)
DC21X4 42,704 (42K) 42,704 (42K) 0 (0K)
WIN 2,000 (2K) 2,000 (2K) 0 (0K)
win386 58,976 (58K) 24,208 (24K) 34,768 (34K)
COMMAND 3,120 (3K) 3,120 (3K) 0 (0K)
NDISHLP 1,440 (1K) 0 (0K) 1,440 (1K)
DISPLAY 8,304 (8K) 0 (0K) 8,304 (8K)
CDROM 4,272 (4K) 0 (0K) 4,272 (4K)
PROTMAN 400 (0K) 0 (0K) 400 (0K)
SMARTDRV 29,024 (28K) 0 (0K) 29,024 (28K)
KEYB 6,944 (7K) 0 (0K) 6,944 (7K)
MSCDEX 28,288 (28K) 0 (0K) 28,288 (28K)
Free 553,728 (541K) 553,728 (541K) 0 (0K)
Type of Memory Total = Used + Free
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Conventional 655,360 101,632 553,728
Upper 113,440 113,440 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS) 15,549,664 14,501,088 1,048,576
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Total memory 16,318,464 14,716,160 1,602,304
Total under 1 MB 768,800 215,072 553,728
Largest executable program size 553,712 (541K)
Largest free upper memory block 0 (0K)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.
--
Mark Rae
ASP.NET MVP
http://www.markrae

[jorgensen]

I have had a similar problem and was due to a too big harddisk - try a fixed
40MB harddisk.

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

[JSM175]

I'm sorry to say that was not the problem,

A smaller harddisk did nothing to help.

Post by jorgensen
I have had a similar problem and was due to a too big harddisk - try a fixed
40MB harddisk.

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated

[GoneToPlaid]

Hi JSM175,

What does your emm386 line look like in your config.sys? Anyway, I have
successfully gotten Novell Netware DOS 7 plus Windows 3.1 running in Virtual
PC 2007. I can either have EMS memory enabled or disabled, depending on
whether I know that I will run programs which require EMS memory. Even with
FSHARE and the mouse and cd-rom drivers loaded, in Win 3.1 using FRAME=NONE
for emm386, at a Windows command prompt I have just a bit over 600K of free
contiguous memory for DOS apps. And my setup with NW DOS 7 and Win 3.1 runs
completely stable.

Hmm...you might want a VHD of my NW DOS 7 fully configured installation.

:)

Post by JSM175
I'm sorry to say that was not the problem,
A smaller harddisk did nothing to help.

Post by jorgensen
I have had a similar problem and was due to a too big harddisk - try a fixed
40MB harddisk.

Post by JSM175
I've been trying to get word 6.0c to work in Windows 3.11 with DOS 6.22 in
virtual pc 2007. The installation process happens smoothly but so far all I
get is a insufficent memory error when I try to run the program. Word 6.0c is
the first and only program I've attempted to install and run. I'm fairly sure
that I have enough memory with the virtual machine set to 32mb.
any assistance would be appreciated