can't enable Virtual Memory in Win 98?...

[surf_angel]

I hope I put this in the right category. Here is my prob. I am trying to enable Virtual Memory and nothing I do changes the settings. I go into running Win 98 , Athlon 1800, 768mb pc2100 DDR Ram, 120gb HD. "When I select the Performance tab inside Sys. Prop. It states Virtual Memory Disabled? So I click on Virtual Memory tab at Bottom and "Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings" is already selected. How do I turn this on?
Please help... Thanks in advance!!

[GaryRouth]

Sorry for the slow response time - I've been away on vacation.

For a quick review of the overall virtual memory/vcache situation, aumha.org has a fairly clear article, which includes a few tweaks that might help: http://aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.htm

Is this a fairly new build? The system in your specs is new enough & powerful enough to run either Win2kPro or WinXP, which do a better job of handling the newer, more powerful systems with their larger hard drives & greater amounts of system memory.

That said, Win98 should work OK with a little tender loving care. You might first try adding the vcache setting to your system.ini [this is often recommended for Win98 systems with memory greater than 512mb: " VCache increasing above 512 MB can create serious memory handling problems. If you have more than 512 MB of RAM, a VCache maximum of 524,288 KB (or a little less) is recommended. This is obtained by adding a MaxFileCache=x entry in the [vcache] section of SYSTEM.INI, where x is the maximum value you wish to set" --> this is quoted from the aumha.org article]

After applying the new vcache setting by adding the line to your system.ini file, reboot. Then re-enable your Virtual Memory to "let Windows manage ..." and reboot again. That might well do it.

Post again if that doesn't fix it.
. . . Gary

[by the way, are you seeing your whole hard drive in Windows Explorer? To install Win98 on a hard drive larger than 64gb, either the hard disk manufacturer's utility or a newer MS fdisk is necessary for preparing the hard drive]