Windows® 98 Unleashed

Windows 98 and Memory: A Primer

Entire books can be (and, indeed, have been) written about the relationship between Windows and memory. What it all boils down to, though, is quite simple: The more memory you have, the happier Windows (and most of your programs) will be. However, not everyone can afford to throw 64 megabytes of memory at their problems. We have to make do with less, and that, in essence, is what this chapter is all about. Later, I'll show you some ways to fight back if a lack of memory is slowing Windows 98 to a crawl.

The Move to 32 Bits

Windows 98 simplifies things (relatively speaking) by moving from the 16-bit segmented memory addressing that shackled DOS for so many years to the full 32-bit addressing associated with 80386 ...