HIMEM.SYS And WordPerfect 5.1

DocumentID: 650452
Revision Date: 29-Feb-96 8:28:59 PM

The information in this document applies to:
WordPerfect® 5.1 for DOS

Problem

Solutions: The customer called to say that he had a new expanded memory device that goes into the CONFIG.SYS file called HIMEM.SYS. This device is produced by Microsoft and according to him it is being sold with some 4.0 DOS packages. HIMEM.SYS is Microsoft's implementation of their own Extended Memory Specification (XMS). There are other implementations of XMS, including QEMM 5.0 and 386MAX. The primary purpose of HIMEM.SYS is to make an additional 64K of memory available to DOS programs running on 286 or 386 machines, through a standardized set of function calls. About the same time that the customer started using the HIMEM.SYS device he started experiencing strange things with WordPerfect 5.1 (01/19/90). When the user would enter WP and then leave the system unused for about 10 minutes, block would come on and WP would break into an infinite loop of up cursor commands until the top of the document is reached, at which point everything would lock up. It just so happens that when the device was taken out of the CONFIG.SYS file the problem disappeared. WP does NOT make any XMS calls and, as far as we know, should not be affected in any way by the presence or absence of HIMEM.SYS. The problem described above sounds as if the HIMEM.SYS was interacting with some other TSR in the system that somehow caused these symptoms to appear in WP. This is something we should keep an eye on. If more reports of this nature turn up, please enter the information in the STR database.

Answer:

Details:

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