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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mr.mark who wrote (3578)	5/15/1999 2:20:00 AM
From: RJL	Respond to of 110631

Just in reference to your buffer and files question in your config.sys... Unless you're running DOS apps such as Accpac, they're pretty much useless. You can safely REM them out without having to worry to much. That said, never 'fix' something unless it's broken. If you aren't experiencing the problems described, might as well leave as is. Rich

To: mr.mark who wrote (3578)	5/16/1999 9:04:00 AM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110631

FILES= and BUFFERS= in CONFIG.SYS A left-over from the days of DOS and limited hardware resources. DOS sets aside memory to hold file handles. Each file handle takes about a hundred bytes. Many handles equals many bytes. With RAM being limited, the solution was to enable the number of handles to be set to a number that could handle the work and not waste resources. At first, 10 was OK, then 30 became the expected norm, later higher numbers were common. (I still use 30 on my old DOS machine.) DOS also set aside memory to use for disk buffering. Each buffer occupied a small amount of memory, but more than a file handle, so again, like file handles, were best rationed as needed. Later versions of DOS, 5.0 and beyond, I think, included provision for disk buffering which went way beyond the early buffering which relied on the BUFFERS= found in your CONFIG.SYS file. This advanced buffering could be set to allocate memory by the megabyte, but, more importantly, it could make its 'footprint' smaller if Windows were running, since Windows had its own buffering capability and the DOS buffering wouldn't be needed. Since I don't need BUFFERS, my DOS machine has BUFFERS=0, to save the memory allocated by default. Anyway, the DOS FILES= and BUFFERS= do consume memory, but by today's standards, not very much. In fact the triple digit numbers suggested would hardly be noticable in today's magabyte Windows systems. Windows reads CONFIG.SYS and uses the values to make an appropriate DOS environment available when you open a DOS window. Otherwise Windows ignores these values. (I don't use these lines in my CONFIG.SYS file.) As far as Systemworks goes, I didn't notice any slowdown running it, but did notice booting took longer. This is reasonable since a few more programs load during boot. I now only load what I want when I want it and I feel I have the best of both worlds, fast boot, SystemWorks when I want it. I tried to cover the subject, but if I've been unclear or left something out, please point out what I've missed. Hope this helps, PW.