Article 8646 (26 more) in alt.cd-rom: From: blh@hpuerca.atl.hp.com (Bill Hassell) Subject: Re: cdrom parameters Message-ID: Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 21:57:46 GMT Distribution: alt References: Organization: the HP Response Center, Atlanta X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1.3 PL5 Lines: 45 Here's a list of MSCDEX parameters: /D: This parameter 'hooks' the MSCDEX utility with the same name given to the CDROM driver using the same parameter. For instance: CONFIG.SYS device=c:\phillips.sys /d:mscd000 ...other stuff... AUTOEXEC.BAT mscdex.exe /d:mscd000 ...other stuff... /L: This parameter tells MSCDEX which drive letter code to use in referencing the CDROM drive. If /L is not used, MSCDEX will use the next available letter not currently assigned. /M:<###> This number specifies the number of 2K bytes buffers to allocate for increasing performance of the CDROM drive. For standalone PC's, 8 is the default (16K bytes) while 12 buffers (24K bytes) is used for network server PC's. This number takes memory directly from 640K unless expanded (not extended) memory is available and the /E parameter is specified. /E Tells MSCDEX to place all the buffers in expanded (not extended) memory). Used to free up memory below 640K. /S Tells MSCDEX to patch DOS to allow sharing of CDROM drives on MS-NET based network servers. This may not be required or may be different depending on the network software used. /V Provides details on memory usage, buffers used, resident data and code and if expanded memory was used. Always interesting to include...it makes bootup fun. The /M parameter is used to increase the performance of the CDROM drive by pre-reading trailing data in anticipation of future needs. It also reduces the number of DOS read requests, but there is a point of diminishing returns which depends mostly on the types searches performed by the software. When the needed data is clustered or sequential in nature, extra buffers help a lot.