I am facing a peculiar problem .. I have a Win98 SE CD kept in CD-ROM drive on my WinNT server. I want to install Win98SE on my client machines over the Network. We have some PIII machines with 128MB RAM, and some PII Celerons with 64MB RAM as clients. I created a Network Installation Disk (using Windows NT 4) with which I can boot up my client machines to DOS and install DOS drivers for the Network Card, and set it up to use TCP/IP. (We have fixed IPs instead of using DHCP, so I disabled DHCP in the options and gave the IP address, subnet mask, workgroup, domain name etc. For the protocol, I selected TCP/IP) My client machines boot up and can connect to the shared drive containing win98SE (say z:\). Largest executable program size error : Now when I run z:\setup.exe, some client machines (PII 600MHz, 128MB RAM) run fine and install win98SE, but other client machines (600 MHz Celeron, 64MB RAM) terminate with an error msg stating that largest executable program size is less than the requisite. I checked up the memory usage using "mem /c /p". On PIII machines, TCPTSR loads into the Upper Memory, leaving enough room for Setup.exe to run, but in Celerons TCPTSR runs in Conventional memory, causing just a wee bit shortfall of memory required for setup to run. How can I solve this problem?? Shanz. Memory Listing for Pentiums : Modules using memory below 1 MB: Name Total Conventional Upper Memory -------- ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- SYSTEM 18,480 (18K) 13,744 (13K) 4,736 (5K) HIMEM 34,128 (33K) 34,128 (33K) 0 (0K) EMM386 3,120 (3K) 3,120 (3K) 0 (0K) UMB 960 (1K) 272 (0K) 688 (1K) TCPTSR 77,056 (75K) 272 (0K) 76,784 (75K) TINYRFC 18,224 (18K) 18,224 (18K) 0 (0K) NMTSR 6,160 (6K) 6,160 (6K) 0 (0K) REDIR 101,824 (99K) 98,016 (96K) 3,808 (4K) IFSHLP 3,968 (4K) 0 (0K) 3,968 (4K) COMMAND 10,064 (10K) 0 (0K) 10,064 (10K) PROTMAN 400 (0K) 0 (0K) 400 (0K) DLKRTS 31,344 (31K) 0 (0K) 31,344 (31K) TCPDRV 1,328 (1K) 0 (0K) 1,328 (1K) NEMM 672 (1K) 0 (0K) 672 (1K) Free 489,728 (478K) 481,328 (470K) 8,400 (8K) Memory Summary: Type of Memory Total Used Free Press any key to continue . . . ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Conventional 655,360 174,032 481,328 Upper 142,192 133,792 8,400 Reserved 0 0 0 Extended (XMS) 66,901,136 383,120 66,518,016 ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Total memory 67,698,688 690,944 67,007,744 Total under 1 MB 797,552 307,824 489,728 Largest executable program size 481,184 (470K) Largest free upper memory block 8,320 (8K) MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area. Memory Listing for Celerons : Modules using memory below 1 MB: Name Total Conventional Upper Memory -------- ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- SYSTEM 18,272 (18K) 13,680 (13K) 4,592 (4K) HIMEM 34,192 (33K) 34,192 (33K) 0 (0K) EMM386 3,120 (3K) 3,120 (3K) 0 (0K) UMB 960 (1K) 272 (0K) 688 (1K) TCPTSR 76,784 (75K) 76,784 (75K) 0 (0K) TINYRFC 18,496 (18K) 272 (0K) 18,224 (18K) NMTSR 6,160 (6K) 6,160 (6K) 0 (0K) REDIR 101,824 (99K) 87,200 (85K) 14,624 (14K) IFSHLP 3,968 (4K) 0 (0K) 3,968 (4K) PROTMAN 400 (0K) 0 (0K) 400 (0K) DLKRTS 31,344 (31K) 0 (0K) 31,344 (31K) TCPDRV 1,328 (1K) 0 (0K) 1,328 (1K) NEMM 672 (1K) 0 (0K) 672 (1K) COMMAND 10,064 (10K) 0 (0K) 10,064 (10K) Free 473,440 (462K) 433,584 (423K) 39,856 (39K) Memory Summary: Type of Memory Total Used Free Press any key to continue . . . ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Conventional 655,360 221,776 433,584 Upper 125,760 85,904 39,856 Reserved 0 0 0 Extended (XMS) 64,820,416 379,072 64,441,344 ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Total memory 65,601,536 686,752 64,914,784 Total under 1 MB 781,120 307,680 473,440 Largest executable program size 433,440 (423K) Largest free upper memory block 30,800 (30K) MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area. Here are the Autoexec.bat code: --- path=a:\;a:\net REM Initialize the network adapter and load REM the TCP/IP stack a:\net\net initialize a:\net\netbind.com a:\net\umb.com a:\net\tcptsr.exe a:\net\tinyrfc.exe a:\net\nmtsr.exe a:\net\emsbfr.exe a:\net\net start REM net use z: \\\win98se echo Running Setup... REM Run Windows98 SE setup z:\setup.exe --- Config.sys DEVICE=A:\NET\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=A:\NET\EMM386.exe NOEMS DEVICEHIGH=A:\NET\ifshlp.sys DOS=HIGH,UMB FILES=30 BUFFERS=20 LASTDRIVE=Z STACKS=9,256 -- in the Net folder System.ini file [network] filesharing=no printsharing=no autologon=yes computername=SHANZ lanroot=A:\NET username=shanz workgroup=workgroup reconnect=yes dospophotkey=N lmlogon=0 logondomain= preferredredir=full autostart=full maxconnections=8 [network drivers] netcard=Dlkrts.dos transport=tcpdrv.dos,nemm.dos devdir=A:\NET LoadRMDrivers=yes [Password Lists] *Shares=a:\net\Share000.PWL -- Protocol.ini file [network.setup] version=0x3110 netcard=ms$ne2clone,1,MS$NE2CLONE,1 transport=tcpip,TCPIP lana0=ms$ne2clone,1,tcpip [ms$ne2clone] drivername=Dlkrts$ ; INTERRUPT=3 ; IOBASE=0x300 ; SlotNumber=1 [protman] drivername=PROTMAN$ PRIORITY=MS$NDISHLP [tcpip] NBSessions=6 DefaultGateway0=192 168 0 1 SubNetMask0=255 255 255 0 IPAddress0=192 168 0 30 DisableDHCP=1 DriverName=TCPIP$ BINDINGS=ms$ne2clone LANABASE=0 --

Why not copy the Cab files to workstation drive, reboot and run the install from the workstation. Then go into the registry and change the default path for the system files to the CD-Rom on the server.

Shanz Usually when the "largest executable program size" message appears that is in reference to a DOS based program. I see here you only have appx. 423K. Ick! I would definitely place config.sys high in the memory. Nothing you can REM out to get more memory? Checked and see if you have a Config. DOS file? You can eeeck out a little bit of more memory by placing the device's in your config. sys file as DEVICEHIGH instead of Device. That may make only a slight bit of difference, but it may be enough. Good Luck. Let me know if that helps you out. -Jeff KC Computer Consulting

Reply to Gregoryglen >> Hi Greg, Thanx for the tips, buddy. Actually, I did copy the setup files to the workstation over the network and managed to install Win98. But, copying to the workstation and installing from there defeats the purpose of a remote install. I was, primarily looking for a solution to tweat the memory settings to ensure that the maximum conventional memory is available for setup.exe to execute. Thanx again, Shanz

with DEVICEHIGH=A:\NET\ifshlp.sys Modules using memory below 1 MB: Name Total Conventional Upper Memory -------- ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- SYSTEM 18,272 (18K) 13,680 (13K) 4,592 (4K) HIMEM 34,192 (33K) 34,192 (33K) 0 (0K) EMM386 3,120 (3K) 3,120 (3K) 0 (0K) UMB 960 (1K) 272 (0K) 688 (1K) TCPTSR 76,784 (75K) 76,784 (75K) 0 (0K) TINYRFC 18,496 (18K) 272 (0K) 18,224 (18K) NMTSR 6,160 (6K) 6,160 (6K) 0 (0K) REDIR 101,824 (99K) 87,200 (85K) 14,624 (14K) IFSHLP 3,968 (4K) 0 (0K) 3,968 (4K) PROTMAN 400 (0K) 0 (0K) 400 (0K) DLKRTS 31,344 (31K) 0 (0K) 31,344 (31K) TCPDRV 1,328 (1K) 0 (0K) 1,328 (1K) NEMM 672 (1K) 0 (0K) 672 (1K) COMMAND 10,064 (10K) 0 (0K) 10,064 (10K) Free 473,440 (462K) 433,584 (423K) 39,856 (39K) Memory Summary: Type of Memory Total Used Free Press any key to continue . . . ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Conventional 655,360 221,776 433,584 Upper 125,760 85,904 39,856 Reserved 0 0 0 Extended (XMS) 64,820,416 379,072 64,441,344 ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Total memory 65,601,536 686,752 64,914,784 Total under 1 MB 781,120 307,680 473,440 Largest executable program size 433,440 (423K) Largest free upper memory block 30,800 (30K) MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

Reply to Jeff >> Thanx Jeff, setup.exe error msg tells me that I need at least 443K of free conventional memory. Falling short by just 20k. I tried tweaking autoexec.bat (Using LOADHIGH) and config.sys (using DEVICEHIGH) in several ways, but no luck. I'm sorry, I'm not able to put the mem output in a tabular manner. What puzzled me, is, how can 2 identical systems show different module loading into memory? In one, there is room for TCPTSR to split between conventional and upper memory, in other there isn't . From what I understand, all machines have 640k conventional memory and 120-something upper memory. Shanz.