Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!rutgers!att!alberta!auvax!kevinc
From: kevinc@auvax.UUCP (Kevin "auric" Crocker)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Just how smart is "SmartDrive"?
Summary: All this stuff about SmartDrive is getting me down!
Message-ID: <865@auvax.UUCP>
Date: 18 Feb 89 21:06:52 GMT
References: <7229@june.cs.washington.edu>
Organization: Athabasca U., Alberta, Canada
Lines: 30

In article <7229@june.cs.washington.edu>, roper@june.cs.washington.edu (Michael Roper) writes:
> 
> The recent question about Windows and expanded memory prompts
> this question about Windows and its disk cacher, SmartDrive.
> Since SmartDrive took a beating in the recent review of such
> programs in PC Magazine, I am considering dumping it for some-
> thing that does a better job.  But I recently added 1M of ex-
> panded memory and SmartDrive's claim to fame is its unique 
> ability to relinquish expanded memory to Windows when asked.
> It recovers the memory when Windows releases it.
> 
I have both AT extended memory (1M) and LIM 4.0 expanded memory (1M)
and up till now I have not been able to use this stuff very well.
Putting in SmartDrive and HIMEM.SYS has made a h*ll of a difference in
the speed that quite a number of my programs, such as Lotus Manuscript,
1-2-3, Freelance Plus, Guide 2.0, Agenda, and a lot of utilities.

I had been using DCACHE from Pc Mag but it didn't really seem to do the
job.  One of the biggest problems that I face is printing large
documents with formatting galore (with equations) and SmartDrive has
made a whole lot of difference to applications that don't even run
under Windows.

CAVEAT:  I am still reasonably unimpressed with WINDOWS/286.
Conversion costs for the software that I have is unbelievable.  I can't
stand PIF files at all - what a waste of my hard disk.

Kevin
-- 
Kevin "Auric" Crocker @Athabasca University {alberta ncc}auvax!kevinc