China DOS Union

wengier, I've recently used your Super Boot Disk, and it feels very good. You must have put a lot of effort into it, right? Respect, respect!
There's a question:
When I boot step-by-step, after the last line in config finishes, another line appears: devicehigh=.\ifshlp.sys,
Where is this loaded from? Is it related to the IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS files?

wengier, the commands in Super Boot Disk's config such as fcbshigh and fileshigh don't seem to be standard DOS configuration commands. It seems there shouldn't be a "high" after them, right? What's going on with this? What are they used for?

Thanks! IFSHLP.SYS is a required program when a DOS boot disk has booted into DOS and you then want to run Win9x. But if you don't want to run the Win9x GUI program, then it isn't needed.

Commands like FILESHIGH are newly added CONFIG.SYS commands in newer DOS versions (such as MS-DOS 7.x, FreeDOS Kernel 2030, etc.), used to place them into UMB memory to save conventional memory usage. Older DOS versions do not have these commands.

Thanks for the explanation, but you still didn't make it clear: by what method is .\IFSHLP.SYS loaded? How can I make it not load?

This is your CONFIG.SYS


MENUITEM=M1,Boot with EMM386(NOEMS)
MENUITEM=M2,Boot with UMBPCI
MENUITEM=M3,Boot with EMM386(NOEMS), NTFS and USB drives support(if any)
MENUITEM=M4,Boot with UMBPCI, NTFS and USB drives support(if any)
MENUITEM=M5,View the README file only(with Chinese support)
MENUITEM=M6,Shutdown or restart the computer
MENUDEFAULT=M1,15


DEVICE=ECHO.SYS L/o/a/d/i/n/g CONFIG.SYS /w/i/t/h EMM386...
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS
INCLUDE CD


DEVICE=ECHO.SYS L/o/a/d/i/n/g CONFIG.SYS /w/i/t/h UMBPCI...
DEVICE=ECHO.SYS
DEVICE=UMBPCI.SYS
DEVICE=LOWDMA.SYS
DEVICE=HIRAM.EXE
DEVICEHIGH=HIMEM.SYS
INCLUDE CD


INCLUDE M1
INCLUDE USB


INCLUDE M2
INCLUDE USB


DEVICE=ECHO.SYS Y/o/u /h/a/v/e /c/h/o/s/e/n /t/o /v/i/e/w README /o/n/l/y.
INCLUDE M6


DEVICE=ECHO.SYS P/l/e/a/s/e /w/a/i/t...
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS


DEVICE=ECHO.SYS L/o/a/d/i/n/g USB /d/r/i/v/e/s /s/u/p/p/o/r/t...
DEVICE=DUSE.EXE INT EMU CDW=3 DDW=3 XFER=32 DRIVES=2 CDD=USB-CD OBAR=0xF000 OHCN=1
DEVICE=USBASPI.SYS /R
DEVICEHIGH=DI1000DD.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=USBCD.SYS /D:USB-CD
DEVICE=ASPIOHCI.SYS /INT /ALL
DEVICE=ASPIUHCI.SYS /INT /ALL
DEVICE=ECHO.SYS


DEVICEHIGH=VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:IDE-CD
DEVICEHIGH=ASPICD.SYS /D:SCSI-CD


DEVICE=ECHO.SYS M/a/d/e /b/y W/e/n/g/i/e/r. C/h/i/n/a DOS U/n/i/o/n.
DEVICE=ECHO.SYS A/l/l /r/i/g/h/t/s /r/e/s/e/r/v/e/d. 2002-2003.
SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM /P /E:640
SET TMP=C:\
SET TEMP=C:\
DOS=HIGH,UMB,AUTO
NUMLOCK=OFF
FCBSHIGH=4,0
FILESHIGH=30
BUFFERSHIGH=30,0
LASTDRIVEHIGH=32
STACKSHIGH=9,256
COMMENT Made by Wengier. China DOS Union.
COMMENT All rights reserved. 2002-2003.

There is no DEVICEHIGH=.\IFSHLP.SYS in it!
If I delete this file from the root directory, or move it to another directory, it always shows an error message saying the file cannot be found. Why???

Wengier:
Could you talk a bit about variables in DOS? What custom variables does it have? What does each mean?
In what place in memory is the environment for variables stored? How much space does it take?
How are variables referenced in batch files?
Why is it that in the IF statements in Super Boot Disk's autoexec.bat, variables are referenced as %variable%#=XXX#? What is the function of this #?