XMSDSK & IE6 (attn:dnisk98114) (All)

[gangsta]

in the following post (URL):

http://www.winguides.com/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=brdIE&Number=43470&page=0

posted by: dnisk98114,
topic:IE, extremely slow

you suggest using XMSDSK to "setup a shadow ram location for your temp files." (referring to IE's temps)

But the author (uploader on simtel?) has this note as part of the XMSDSK description on the simtel website:
"This is possible on DOS command line
but not under Windows because of virtualization"

Now I am not sure what did you mean by "setup a shadow ram location for your temp files." as far as Internet Explorer in cocerned. Simply because this has to be going on under Windows too not pure DOS ; and the file you are talking about is a DOS only Ram disk manager.

how do I use it with IE's temp location then?
if you, or any member, could explain this point to me.

[BertImmenschuh]

This doesn't go directly to the problem, but XMSDSK is probably another term for a RAM Drive or RAMDisk. A RAMdisk is created in Extended Memory [XMS] using a command line in the config.sys file in the root of C: drive in Win9x, MS-DOS, or Win3.x [not familiar with using in WinXP yet]. It sets aside a specified amount of RAM to simulate a hard drive. When the computer is turned off, the RAMDisk disappears [and everything in it] and is recreated [empty] at the next boot-up. RAM is volatile in that it requires power to the memory modules to maintain what is stored in it. The Win98 install floppy usually creates a RAMDisk when loading CD drivers prior to installation.

[gangsta]

thanks for the reply , but I know what a ram disk does. I used it all the time in my win 3.1 days , when dos was still king. But that was over 10 years ago, and things have changed a lot. Now windows does not allow it to windows programs...
so that is why I am wondering how to use it with IE temps.. Unless of course this ramdisk is accessible by windows applications then that does make sense.

I just want to have this point clarified. An example of what to put in the XMSDSK line (for the IE temp files) at config.sys wouldn't hurt?

say if I just specify the path (C:\win\TIF\...), is this going to work, or do I have to give it another name & then go into IE & change the TIF location to the name given in the ramdisk command.

final question,
wouldn't storing TIF using a ramdisk slowdown my PC... I have 128mb ram & I am not sure this is good enough if some one uses DSL with 100s of MBs going to TIF folder in every session..

[BertImmenschuh]

The RAMDisk I used in Win3.x worked just fine in Win95, haven't used it since. Win95 used the config.sys and autoexec.bat also. At one time, I used a RAMDisk of 5MB to copy floppies to when re-arranging the files and cleaning floppies but since getting a Zip drive, I just image the floppies to it.

Win98 didn't necessarily need them but could use them. WinME doesn't use them, hasn't got much DOS left.

Anything that takes away memory for use by Windows is going to make a difference in performance.

I don't worry about TIFs, just set the limit to 20MB and let it run. I figure, so what if it takes a few seconds longer to load a page, how long does it take the hard drive to search 100MBs of TIFs?