China DOS Union

Why can't IO。SYS in WINME be modified (the one in 98 can)? Has it been compressed? Can it be restored? Also, I'm making a boot disk and want to ask what software is better for compression. I wonder if any expert can tell me. Many thanks!

IO.SYS in WinME (DOS 8.0) is of course compressed, which is why its size is relatively small. But the compression format is still unknown for now.

Do you want to compress IO or something else???

The following is quoted from Wengier's post at 2003-5-8 19:54:30:
IO.SYS in WinME（DOS 8.0）is of course compressed, which is why its size is relatively small. But the compression format is still unknown for now.

Seems like it's the old method again Doublespace

I suggest using 98 for the boot disk. ME's DOS isn't that good. You can try using ME's DOS to install NT or 2000—it simply won't install!

ME came out later than NT and 2000, so it's normal that it doesn't support NT and 2000, but now if you want to use FDISK to partition a hard disk larger than 40G, you have to use the FDISK from ME

What we mainly make on the forum are MS-DOS 7.10 boot disks. We basically don't use DOS 8.0, because its compatibility is not as good as 7.10's.

No, what I want is to decompress and restore IO。SYS, and then modify the information inside it. If I use IO。SYS from 98, then I have to add HIMEM。SYS in CONFIG。SYS, while this command is already there in IO。SYS from ME. Also, what exactly is the benefit of HIMEM。SYS? If I use IO。SYS from 98, can I do without HIMEM。SYS? One more question: speaking only of the HIMEM。SYS file, which one is better? On the Internet I found three versions: one is a little over 3K, another is a little over 5K, and the other is the one from 98 and ME (the HIMEM。SYS in 98 and ME is the same). Thanks

HIMEM.SYS in Win98 (MS-DOS 7.10) and WinME (MS-DOS 8.0) is not exactly the same.
For example, the former's HIMEM.SYS has the following text:

MS-DOS Version 7 (C)Copyright 1981-1995 Microsoft Corp

while the latter's HIMEM.SYS has the following text:

MS-DOS Version 8 (C)Copyright 1981-2000 Microsoft Corp

So clearly they are not the same.

HIMEM.SYS is an XMS driver that provides XMS extended memory. Only HIMEM.SYS in MS-DOS 7+ supports XMS memory above 64M.

Of course HIMEM.SYS in WinME (DOS 8.0) supports large memory. What I said above was that HIMEM.SYS in “MS-DOS 7+ and above” supports large memory, that is, HIMEM.SYS in MS-DOS 7.x and above supports large memory. “+” means “or above.”

HIMEM.SYS has already been embedded into the DOS 8 kernel file IO.SYS. It is exactly identical to the standalone HIMEM.SYS in DOS 8, so it cannot be loaded repeatedly.

Mm, that's right, the displayed information in HIMEM.SYS really wasn't changed. But the displayed information in files like EMM386.EXE has already been changed.