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rottum

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23 years ago

R

rottum

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May 15th, 2004 18:00

Increasing MinSPs in SYSTEM.INI

Dear Forum Members:

I have a Dimension XPS B600r (oldie but goodie) running under Win 98 SE. The system is clean, but has been locking up recently--requiring hard reboots. Yesterday, I finally received a Windows error message with specific information:

"There are no spare stack pages. It may be necessary to increase the setting of 'MinSps' in SYSTEM.INI to prevent possible stacks faults. There are currently 4 SPs allocated."

I assume there is some way for me to enter SYSTEM.INI and alter this setting to allocate more SPs (whatever that means.) I have no prior experience with editing Windows registry. When I open the registry for the first time this morning according to instructions I l found online, I could not even locate the SYSTEM.INI file!

Keeping in mind that I am somewhat nervous about working "under the hood" on this box, can someone confirm that increasing the SPs is the correct thing to do? And if so, can someone provide simple step-by-step instructions how to make this adjustment? To what number should I increase the SPs setting? Assume I am green.

Thanks!

Rich 

 

  • M

    Majestic

    2 Intern

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    9371 Posts

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    Posted May 15th, 2004 18:00

    From the Start button run MSCONFIG.  When the program runs click on the System.Ini tab. then look down the list for the [386Enh] entry and click on that tgo expand the listing. Then find the MnSps line and highlight it and then select edit.  Increasing the number from 4 to 8 should do the trick.
  • DD

    Denny Denham

    2 Intern

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    18798 Posts

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    Posted May 16th, 2004 00:00

    rottum,

    When the system is set to the default of MinSPs (4) there is no entry in the [386Enh] folder. See this (or the text version here).

    Message Edited by Denny Denham on 05-15-2004 06:48 PM

  • R

    rottum

    6 Posts

    537

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    Posted May 16th, 2004 00:00

    Majestic:

    Thanks for the prompt reply. Hmm--almost worked. There is no MnSps line in the [386Enh] folder. I only see: ebios / woafont / mouse / four different device settings / keyboard / EMMExclude=C000-CFFF / display

    I looked under various other tabs from the MSCONFIG utility and couldn't find the MnSps line either.

    Is there someplace else I should look?

    Thanks!

    Rich

     

  • C

    chuket

    1388 Posts

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    Posted May 16th, 2004 03:00

    Here is the MS article on Minsps:

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q149083

    Note the increase 4,8,12, etc.

    Message Edited by chuket on 05-16-2004 01:01 AM

  • R

    rottum

    6 Posts

    537

    0

    Posted May 16th, 2004 14:00

    Chuket:

    Amazing. I searched Microsoft first, and never did find this page! Not everyone is XP!

    Rich

  • R

    rottum

    6 Posts

    537

    0

    Posted May 16th, 2004 14:00

    Denny:

    Thank you very much! Your demo was perfect for my situation, and I increased the setting. I booked your other tutorials for future use.

    Rich

  • R

    rottum

    6 Posts

    537

    0

    Posted May 16th, 2004 14:00

    Majestic:

    Thanks again--your answer, plus the others I received helped me fix the problem. I'll keep this puppy running!

    Rich

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