RAM cram? Use the Load line . . .
Ever got that irritating "Not enough memory to open new document . . ." message? Can't afford another 4Mb of RAM? Well, here's a tip for anyone trying to squeeze the absolute most out of their existing RAM. It won't buy you another megabyte, but it may help when working with two or more applications. Try adding the files you want to open to the "load=" line of your WIN.INI file (in the Windows directory), using a text editor. For example, to load a large spreadsheet and a word processing document, you might add:
load=C:\MYDATA\EXCEL\BIGSHEET.XLS
C:\MYDATA\AMIPRO\BIGDOC.SAM
Be sure to put a space between each one. Restart Windows and the applications will load automatically. I have found that this can save between three and 10 per cent of system resources compared to loading them separately (check Help-About in Program Manager to see how much you saved). I am not sure why this works, but there do not seem to be any side effects. Perhaps someone can explain? The downside is that these documents will always load with Windows until you change your WIN.INI file again.
- Mark Tigwell