Less Conventional Memory Available in European OSR2

In some localized non-English versions of Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 and 2.1 (OSR2), there may be less conventional memory available to MS-DOS-based programs.

In these versions, the MEM /C command may show Himem.sys occupying approximately 44K of conventional memory. In the English version of OSR2, the MEM /C command shows Himem.sys occupying approximately 1K of conventional memory.

This issue is known to affect the following language versions of OSR2: Brazilian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The increased conventional memory used by Himem.sys occurs because Io.sys occupies more memory in the high memory area (HMA), forcing Himem.sys to be relocated in conventional memory.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 and 2.1. An update to address this problem is now available, but should be applied only to computers experiencing this specific problem. Unless you are severely impacted by this specific problem, Microsoft does not recommend implementing this update at this time. Contact the vendor of your OEM version of Windows 95 for additional information about the availability of this update, or obtain the update from the Microsoft Download Center, as described below.

This issue is resolved by the following updated files for OSR2: To install this update, follow these steps:

1. Download the appropriate Iosys<xxx>.exe file from the Microsoft Download Center to an empty folder.

         Language version   Download this file
         -------------------------------------
         Brazilian          Iosysbrz.exe
         Danish             Iosysdan.exe
         Dutch              Iosysdut.exe
         Finnish            Iosysfin.exe
         French             Iosysfrn.exe
         German             Iosysger.exe
         Italian            Iosysitn.exe
         Norwegian          Iosysnor.exe
         Portugese          Iosyspor.exe
         Spanish            Iosysspa.exe
   						

2. In My Computer or Windows Explorer, double-click the file you downloaded in step 1.
3. Follow the instructions on the screen.

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

This symptom occurs whether the computer boots from the hard disk or from an Emergency Recovery Disk.

To resolve this issue on computers that already have the affected versions of OSR2 installed, run the appropriate Iosys<xxx>.exe file to update your OSR2 installation. This will check that your computer is running OSR2 and replace the Io.sys file on the boot drive.

To update an existing OSR2 Emergency Recovery Disk (ERD), use the SYS A: (or SYS B: as appropriate) command at a command prompt or in the Run dialog box. Make sure that the ERD is not write protected. Note that there is a fix available for Microsoft Windows 98 as well, for the following languages:

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: