# More than 256Meg in Win 98?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 10, 2002, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828 "2002-12-10T19:58:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2002, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828/1 "2002-12-10T19:58:39Z")
I’ve been running Windows 98 SE with 256 meg of ram quite happily for some time. Recently I found a good deal on memory so loaded it to the max with 768 meg. Now Win98 is hugely unstable and lots of apps complain about ‘not enough memory’. The DIMMS themselves are fine because I’m writing this from my Linux partition and everything is OK.
Is there some ini file somewhere I can tweak to get Win98 to deal with the memory, or am I going to have to upgrade to Win2000 or XP?
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### Author:  [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2002, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828/2 "2002-12-10T20:02:47Z")
Its not more than 256 is the problem, its 512. Over that, Win98 has problems dealing with it.
Going by memory only (don’t hold me liable if this doesn’t work!):
Go to Run and type in msconfig and click OK then click the Advaced button. Place a checkmark beside “Limit Memory To” and set it to 512.
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### Author:  [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2002, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828/3 "2002-12-10T20:47:11Z")
Thanks bernse. After I posted this I did some more searches on the microsoft site and found just what you mentioned. Unforunately, I think I’ve completely screwed my win98 install. Before making other changes I figured I do a Windows Update. However, during this process IE hung badly and I had to do a hard reset. Now Win98 won’t boot at all except in safe mode. Looks like I’ll be installing Win2000 after all.
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2002, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828/4 "2002-12-10T23:34:46Z")
"Actually, 512 meg is too much, unless you’re running an application like Photoshop that has it’s own memory manager. Generally speaking, you won’t see any improvement in performance once you get over 128 meg. M$ themselves admits to there being a problem in this area, particularly with lockups on machines with 512 meg or more of physical memory, and treats it at [http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q253912&](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q253912&)
[http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,646598,00.asp](http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,646598,00.asp)
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### Author:  [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2002, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828/5 "2002-12-10T23:51:06Z")
Bah. Many new programs loooove memory. I’ve noticed a difference in Flight Simulator 2002 going from 384MB to 640. Up until a year or so ago, you were correct. Not anymore though. Most new “higher-end” PCs are coming with 512MB stock.
**Kferr** , for what its worth, I’d recomend XP over 2000.
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### Author:  [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2002, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-than-256meg-in-win-98/141828/6 "2002-12-11T16:06:29Z")
Microsoft has updated their URL naming scheme.
The new address for **Handy’s** first link is [http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];253912](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;%5BLN%5D;253912)