Perhaps someone one can help me. I've been an AREV user since 1993 (at least that'sthe date I put in my code). In any event I'm trying to upgrade my 2.1 to 3.1. I have all the 3.5 disketts for the upgrade and trade up. However, when I try to upgrade I get the following after Disk #2 for (Upgrade to 3.1).

A:\Upgrade Line 1. B706 String space format error.

I am running on a stand alone Windows XP Sp3 computer with 2GB of memory and plenty of Hard Disk Space.

is there some trick to the Autoexec.NT and Config.nt? Or is there some memory manager I have to install and/or purchase to get the upgrade to work.

My overall intention is to move towards AREV32..

Any help would be truly appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

You need expanded memory working to give ARev more string space.

Edit the config.nt in Windows\System32 and add:

dos=high, umb

EMM=RAM

device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys

files=60

Then open a command prompt window (Start-Run-type CMD (ok))

Type: MEM

and see if expanded memory (EMS) is active.

You may have to create a shortcut/pif to cmd.exe and change the EMS setting in the memory property tab to at least 4MB. If this still doesn't work instead of neutering your system by disabling devices just download and install EMSMagic from http://www.emsmagic.com/

From a command prompt window or a shortcut to arev.exe add the switch:

/xm4096

e.g. AREV.exe username /xm4096

From TCL in ARev type "WHO" and see if EMS is active.

I have a "Lack of expanded memory" too, but it causes me the message "B28 Not enough string space - Out of Memory". Our Windows XP SP3 machines have recently stopped supplying it for some reason best known to MicroStuft.

The instructions for implementing EMM as supplied by Warren Auyong are correct (though FILES=120 is what I think I am using) but the command switches should be /X /M4096. They are two separate switches. On the Properties Memory tab for the option which calls AREV I have the values Auto, Auto, 4096, None and Auto. This turns on 4Mb of Expanded Memory and turns off Extended Memory completely. I've been using this format for years. You cannot supply more than 4Mb to AREV.

I have looked up String space format error in my knowledge base and found only two references. Neither of these says what it means.

One reference was to a corrupt Relational index in a !file, and the other referred to network caching which "should be disabled using the environment window setting". The latter means RUNMENU MANAGEMENT (APPCONFIG in 3.nn) from TCL, then selecting Workstation, Hardware, and set the "Network Cache size" value to 0. You should do the latter and hope that fixes it. If you want to know more about the corrupt index I'll send you the details.

Patrick Fenlon

Extra thought:

Conversion to AREV32 is from any version of Arev – why knock yourself out?

Patrick Fenlon

If I remember some motherboards stopped supporting the lim specification, and no matter what you try you could no longer get emm to work…

That's true, but EMSMAGIC uses XMS to emulate EMS, which gets around this problem.

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EMSMAGIC can handle motherboards that don't support EMS.

Thanks Warren and everyone who responded. It worked! My problem was trying to get 2.1 to 3.1 upgraded on my laptop. As soon as I moved to another workstation the expanded memory, etc worked fine.

Now I will try the upgrade. My next goal is to see if I can obtain a "demo" version of AREV32 and see how it works. I want to be sure I have all my technical issues in order before I move to AREV32.

Thanks everyone

Hi everyone. Sorry to say I got the extended memory to work fine. I'm still getting the following when trying to upgrade to version 3.01

DOS A:\Upgrade LIne 1. B706 String space format error.

This error message comes after I insert; then the install continues copying files from the following disk..

Version 3.01 Upgrade

Multi-User

System Disk 2

Then I receive that error message and I get retured to

C:\AREV

Then I type "exit" and return back to the desktop.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Paul

when you say, I am returned to C:Arev, are you trying to runfrom a command line… this would use up the avail string space….Try a shortcut with switches

String space format errors generally come from the 640K memory, not EMS. EMS would give you specific EMS memory errors like

FATAL ERROR IN EXPANDED MEMORY: ERROR mmm DETECTED IN MODULE n

WHILE EXECUTING

So, what you'll need to do is try freeing up some lower memory. You'd really be best using EMS magic, since that handles a lot of this for you.

The Sprezzatura Group

The Sprezzatura Blog

World leaders in all things RevSoft

Switches can be combined. Thus /xm4096 is the sames as /x /m4096

You can give ARev more than 4 MB of EMS. Only half of the allocated EMS up to a maximum of 2MB will be used for string and stack space. If you are shelling to DOS from ARev and need expanded memory for the child (for instance calling WordPerfect 5.1) then your original DOS session will need more than 4MB.

For instance:

N:\arev31]mem


    655360 bytes total conventional memory
    655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
    584816 largest executable program size

  10485760 bytes total EMS memory
  10485760 bytes free EMS memory

  10483712 bytes total contiguous extended memory
         0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
  66958336 bytes available XMS memory
           MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

N:\arev31]arev /xm6000

(who)

Release Version     =    3.12
User name           =    SYSPROG
Application name    =    SYSPROG
Restriction level    =
Active Language Set =    DEFAULT
CPU Type            =    80486
Math processor      =    80487
Available memory    =    289164
Descriptors used    =    1716
Expanded Memory     =    Active


          EXPANDED MEMORY INFORMATION

  Expanded Memory Statistics
    EM Used                 =      239,616
    EM Allocated            =      6,094,848

  Memory Region                    Segment Address
    16K EM Window           =      CE00 (824K)
    64K Overflow Buffer 1   =      24A4 (147K)
    64K Overflow Buffer 2   =      34A4 (211K)

(suspend)
N:\arev31]mem


    655360 bytes total conventional memory
    655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
    572672 largest executable program size

  10485760 bytes total EMS memory
   4390912 bytes free EMS memory

  10483712 bytes total contiguous extended memory
         0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
  66958336 bytes available XMS memory
           MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

If I had only set 4MB of EMS for the original DOS session 0MB would be free in the child session.

It's not that the motherboards do not support the LIM 4.0 specifications, rather it is the on-board peripherals such as Firewire, PATA etc. that take memory blocks in upper and conventional memory spaces so LIM does not have enough contiguous space to work. In this case you can get EMS to work by disabling these peripherals on the motherboard. This is not a solution if you need any of the peripherals.

Supposedly there are registry settings for NTVDM that will allow you to reallocate the address mappings much like Quarterdeck's QEMM memory manager. After all it is a Virtual DOS Machine. However I've been unable to find any documentation on this.

The conversion will not work on ARev 1.x except in some of the early versions of ARev32. I haven't tried Arev 2.0x on the current versions.

File names have to be converted. Dictionaries should be converted also. If an application was developed in SYSPROG it needs to moved to a separate account/application. The upgrade tools to 3.1 make this easier.

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