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Where Is Win.com Called From?
What does Real Mode Mean?
What is a Virtual Device Driver?
How To Get Rid
Of "MMSYSTEM.DLL Performed An Illegal Operation
How To Clear The
Right-Click, New "Context Menu"
How To Restore Missing
Network Neighborhood Icon
What Is MinSP Error?
Do Applications
Run More Slowly After Running Speed Disk or Defrag?
How To Test Your Hardware
How
To Get Acquainted With Windows Millennium Edition
Do You Really Defragment
Your SwapFile?
How
To Customize Windows 98
If the win.com call is present in the IO.SYS, it will be called there,
such as in computers that have not had MS-DOS installed before Windows
95OSR2 or Windows 98.
On computers where MS-DOS was installed first, there won't be a win.com
call, therefore is it called from MSDOS.SYS.
WIN.COM
Win.com is the executable file responsible for Windows start-up. It
runs after the autoexec.bat file is processed, and it accesses the VMM32.vxd
file.
In a Windows 3.x environment, the win.com file is executed by typing
"win" in the DOS prompt. In version 9x OSs, win.com runs automatically.
An execution mode supported by the Intel 80286 and later processors. In real mode, these processors imitate the Intel 8088 and 8086 microprocessors, although they run much faster. The other mode available is called protected mode. In protected mode, programs can access extended memory and virtual memory. Protected mode also supports multitasking. The 80386 and later microprocessors support a third mode called virtual 8086 mode. In virtual mode, these microprocessors can run several real-mode programs at once.
The DOS operating system was not designed to take advantage of protected
mode, so it always executes programs in real mode unless a protected mode
extender is run first.
In Windows systems, a special type of device driver that has direct access to the operating system kernel. This allows them to interact with system and hardware resources at a very low level.
In Windows 95, virtual device drivers are often called VxDs because the filenames end with the .vxd extension .
VMM32.vxd
Found in Windows 9x machines, VMM32.vxd is the virtual device driverv
library that contains virtual device driver files needed for system start
up.
VMM32.vxd is different for every machine; therefore, if it gets corrupted, it cannot be copied from another computer; it'll need to be rebuilt.
.386 extentions are backwards compatable, see:
http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/I/Intel_microprocessors.html
This is caused when MMSYSTEM.DLL is missing from the drivers= line of system.ini, to cure the problem you will need to add it. To do so click Start and Run, in the Open box type SYSEDIT and click OK.
That will launch the System Configuration Editor, switch to the system.ini window by selecting c:\windows\system.ini from the Window menu. Find the drivers= line and add to it - immediately to the right of the "=" sign - MMSYSTEM.DLL (if there is anything following MMSYSTEM.DLL on that line add a space between it and MMSYSTEM.DLL).
Close the System Configuration Editor window by clicking the cross in
the top right hand corner of the window (when asked, save the changes).
The next time you restart your computer the problem should be cured.
The easy way is to use Tweakui in the Control Panel, found in the "New
Tab".
If the entries you want to get rid of are not there then open your
registry and find the extension of the file you want to remove.
For instance:
You New Context Menu contains "Bitmap Image". You look for
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.bmp\ShellNew.
Once found change the ShellNew to ShellNew-
Your adding a - at the end of ShellNew. This will also change
the corresponding Key in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\.bmp\ShellNew-
Someone might have hidden Network Neighborhood using Tweak UI. Go to Control Panel. If Tweak UI is present, double click it. On the Desktop tab, put a check mark in the Network Neighborhood box, click Apply and OK.
If this doesn't work, go to Control Panel | Network. Remove Client for Microsoft Networks if it is present. Then add Client for Microsoft Networks. That should make Network Neighborhood re-appear.
If that doesn't work, there may be a system policy hiding Network Neighborhood. Run the registry editor and delete this key if it is present:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoNetHood
Ouestion:
I get this error at Startup. What can I do and what does all that VXD
and MINSP stuff mean?
"Terminating thread due to a stack overflow problem. A VxD, possibly recently installed has consumed too much stack space. Increase the setting of 'MinSPs' in System.ini or remove recently installed VxD's. There are currently 5 SPs allocated".
Vxd is a virtual device driver. MinSP means Minimum spare stack pages.
Increase your setting from 2 to 8. If this is not enough, try twelve.
There is some confusion in the Microsoft guide on this. It says that the default setting is 2, but must be a multiple of 4. (4, 8, 12).
Go to the run dialogue, in the start menu, type SYSEDIT and press OK.
The system.ini file should be the fourth one from the front.
Scroll down to the [386Enh] section and look for the setting. On the last line of the section type the following.
minsps=8
Now, go to the file menu, and choose save.
Restart your computer.
The total memory space is divided into 4K segments called pages. What
you have done is essentially give your computer more reserve virtual memory,
into which to load that virtual device driver (whichever one that it was).
Situation: In some cases, after you use Speed Disk/Defrag your applications will run slower than before.
Solution: This is due to the interaction between defragmentation programs and Applog. Applog is a program Windows 98 uses to improve performance of your computer. Speed Disk uses Applog information to arrange the files on the drive to speed up the system. However, in rares cases it will cause applications to actually run slower.
To resolve the problem, delete the contents of the WINDOWS\APPLOG directory, then run Speed Disk/Defrag. Speed Disk/Defrag will then use its own algorithm to defragment the drive. Windows will recreate the contents of the APPLOG directory automatically.
To delete the contents of the APPLOG directory:
1. Click Start, then click Shut Down. The Shut Down Windows dialog box appears.
2. Click Restart, then click OK. Windows will shut down and the computer will restart.
3. As the computer restarts, press and hold down the Ctrl key until the Windows 98 Startup Menu appears.
4. Select "Command Prompt only" to start Windows 98 to a DOS Command Prompt.
5. Type:
CD\ CD C:\Windows\Applog DEL *.*
If Windows is installed in a folder other than C:\Windows on your system, change the above path to the Windows location on your system.
6. Answer Y to delete the contents of the APPLOG directory.
7. Restart the system.
8. Run Speed Disk or Defrag
To test your hardware, the most efficient method is to install Windows into a new, or clean, folder. If the issue occurs after you have a "clean" install, your issue is faulty hardware. Contact your hardware manufacturer or have your hardware checked by a hardware specialist. To install Windows into a new folder, use the steps in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
ARTICLE-ID:
Q193902 TITLE
How to Install Windows 98 in a New Folder
ARTICLE-ID:
Q142096 TITLE
How to Install Windows 95 in a New Folder
If your issue is resolved when you install Windows into a "clean" directory, either your Windows core files are damaged, or there is a setting in your original installation that is causing the problem. You can choose to use this new installation, however, you need to reinstall your programs. If you wish to return to your old installation of Windows and continue troubleshooting, use the steps in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:
ARTICLE-ID:
Q193902 TITLE
How to Install Windows 98 in a New Folder
ARTICLE-ID:
Q142096 TITLE
How to Install Windows 95 in a New Folder
ARTICLE-ID:
Q192926 TITLE
How to Perform Clean-Boot Troubleshooting for Windows 98
ARTICLE-ID:
Q243039 TITLE
How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 95
You cannot safely and effectively defragment the Windows 95/98 paging file. Fragmentation does not noticeably impact performance, because of the way Windows uses the paging file.
The most effective method to make the Windows paging file contiguous is to defragment the free space on the disk. This allows the paging file to dynamically shrink and grow in the contiguous free space.
For example, when you first start Windows, the paging file is small in size. When you start some programs, the paging file can grow about 50 megabytes (MB) or more regardless of the physical memory installed in the computer. When you close all the programs running on your computer, the paging file can shrink to about 15 MB.
Windows pages through the paging file in 4-kilobyte (KB) blocks, even if the paging file is contiguous.
For example, if Windows reads 40 KB of contiguous space from the disk, the paging file is actually read 10 separate times, once for each 4-KB block.
Q186171 Description of the Disk Defragmenter Tool in Windows 98
Q124917
How Disk Defragmenter Reports Fragmentation