Loading the Mouse Driver

When you restart Windows 98/95 to MS DOS mode (by clicking the Start-Shut Down-Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode? menus), then your mouse cannot be used anymore. To solve this problem, usually you have to load the mouse driver using Autoexec.bat file. Unfortunately, this method wastes your memory when you are using Windows 98/95, since the mouse driver is no longer needed in the Windows mode.

Actually, an alternative is to write the load commands into the DOSSTART.BAT file. You'll find this file in the C:\Windows file. Alternatively, you can create it by yourself using Notepad.

Mem.exe Hidden Parameters

MEM /A
Displays a short summary screen of your memory configuration and the status of the HMA. HMA (High Memory Area) is a little known 64 KB area just above the first megabyte (1 MB = 1,024 KB = 1,048,576 Bytes) of RAM mapped by MS-DOS HIMEM.SYS memory manager (or another 3rd party high/extended/expanded memory manager, like Quarterdeck QEMM386, Helix NetRoom RM386, IBM 386MAX, etc). Parts of DOS module itself and of MS-DOS BUFFERS usually load into the HMA. Example of MEM /A output display (only the HMA info is shown here):
"Available space in High Memory Area 1K (944 bytes) MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area."