speeding up your Windows 98 machine

[sjm1027]

Has anyone tried this tip?

Amazing tip for speeding up your
Windows 98 machine:

"This tweak is definitely one to pass along to friends. Windows 98
accesses your swap file (virtual memory) before it runs out of RAM
(physical memory) -- which, from a user's point of view, is completely
nuts. Virtual memory will always operate slower than physical memory, so
why does Windows 98 insist on using both? Frankly, I don't know.
According to article Q223294 in the Microsoft knowledge base, this new
method is more efficient. Uh huh. Thank goodness they've posted a fix!

Yes, if you have more than 64 megabytes of RAM and you're running Windows
98, you'll wanna give this a shot. In your SYSTEM.INI file, under the
[386Enh] section, add this line:

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

Reboot, and I believe you'll find your system more responsive. Your
mileage may vary!"

And yes, having exactly 64 megs of RAM is OK. Let me know if this works
for you!

A note on making the change: BE CAREFUL!

You can open up the SYSTEM.INI file a couple of ways: with Notepad (it's
a text file), or with the command SYSEDIT in the Run box off of your
start menu. If you use SYSEDIT, all of your .INI and .BAT files will tile
for you to edit - just edit SYSTEM.INI.

Above all, and let me say it again, be careful...these are the system
startup files you're working with. Copy and paste the string onto its own
line just below the section header (the 386... line) and save the file.
Then restart. It's a good idea to backup or use GoBack if you're not sure
of your ability to deal with this.

[Cricket]

Hi sjm1027,

I've been using that one for a couple of years now. It's one of the tweaks I do to every Win98 system I work on. Depending on the individual system, the amount of RAM it has and the programs that the owner uses, it can make a difference. (But most of them don't notice...they just want the machine to work).

:) Cricket

[galaxian]

Just be aware that you are now making Win98 do it's memory management like Windows95.
With that "tweak" installed, Windows will not "prep" the swapfile until it actually runs out of memory. You then suffer a performance hit.
Without the "tweak" Windows does the prepping, during idle cycles, and when it need to start swapping, the swapfile is all ready to go, with no additional performance hit.

Just because windows is "accessing" the swapfile does not mean that it is actually paging stuff out as opposed to leaving it in memory.
Its hard to say, but I think the people saying they are getting better performance are basing it on what they are seeing happen with the swapfile, not anything really measurable.
IMHO

[RayH]

The only thing I've found to definitely work to speed up a computer a bit is to turn off unnecessary programs running in the background; regular file maintainence; and more RAM.

All these little so-called tweaks have either had no noticeable affect or made my computer run worse! I quit messing with them. If I need a faster computer, it's time to upgrade!