Himem.sys issue, intermittent, W95

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pivonka571 January 13, 2003 at 22:42:49 Pacific
Specs: Win 95 4.00.950, 486 DX66 32Mb ram

I have a problem a Win 95 4.00.950 machine reporting the Himem.sys file missing. The error message occures in the processing of the config.bat file, but does not always keep Windows from loading.
This is a slow 486 DX66 - I on't rebot between each and every change to the system because it loads Win 95 so
I see problems with Himem.sys result in a lot of 'advice' but little analysis or explanation, so I am posting the 'long form'.
When I restart the computer the system says that the himem.sys file is missing. make sure is in your Windows directory." But that is not an issue, it is there. Also, it only happens when I restart Windows. When I do a cold boot, turn it off and then turn it on again Windows loads.
I don't know why that would be, and think the aswer may be useful. Is it because Config.sys is processed differently, or not at all, in one of the two cases? I'd expect Config.sys processing (more likely I am guessing on a full reboot than a Windows restart) to cause problems, not solve them as seems to be the case here. What is the system doing on restart that it is doing differently on full reboot?
Here is what I think I know about Himem.sys. There are two Himem.sys files in an upgrade install of Windows 95 (and later upgrades?). One is found in C:\Windows and in my Win 95 4.00.950 is dated 7/11/95, 32935bytes. The second is found in C:\DOS and is dated 3/10/93, 14208bytes. (Win 98 might be 5/11/98, 33192bytes with the DOS ver. 5/31/94, 29136bytes.)
Here is a post by Mesich which can help to distinguish between memory hardware failure causes of H.sys problems and problems with the H.sys files and Win loading calls for them. But that does not help my situation, as there is no indication of a memory or hardware problem here.
http://computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/125189.html
It sure would be good to know what the file does, and how and when it is processed in loading Windows, to explain why it behaves differently depending on the type of Win startup.

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Johnw January 14, 2003 at 03:02:50 Pacific

http://freepctech.com/articles/articles.php?ArticleId=38
Missing Himem.sys or A20 error in Windows95 or 98

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666 January 14, 2003 at 06:04:40 Pacific

himem.sys probably didn't load because it found bad ram

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pivonka571 January 20, 2003 at 11:02:46 Pacific

Sorry "666" that was not the correct answer. (Besides having indicated in my writeup that I had already eliminated hardware - RAM is hardware - as an issue, I have found that bad RAM is unusual, and that it locks these older, low memory systems long before they ever begin to load Windows or look for Himem.sys.)
Johnw, the article you cited was unavailable at the link you gave, which was correct, as the site uses some filter in its access process. However
http://freepctech.com/articles/articles.php?Filter=Software-Articles
provided an index entry to the article, which I regard as very useful.
As it turned out, replacing Himem.sys with a copy from the original HDD on this system, and cleaning up the syntax of the config.sys file to place Himem.sys immediately after the "LastDrive" command fixed the problem. I also altered slightly the syntax of the Himem.sys line in Config.sys, along the lines suggested at the article cited by Johnw. I do not know, therefore whether I had a corrupt Himem.sys file, or whether the problem originated in bad syntax in the Config.sys file.
I frankly consider it likely that the problem in my case, and in most other cases of Win 95 Himem.sys errors, originates in Config.sys syntax problems, either on the line calling Himem.sys, or in the placement of that line too far down in the C.sys file, after other commands which it should precede.

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