QEMM - Windows Transition / Decline of QEMM

Windows Transition / Decline of QEMM

When Microsoft finally automated the process of UMB optimisation in MS-DOS 6 with the Memmaker utility, QEMM's market share began to slide.

While popular when DOS programs were the mainstream, QEMM eventually became largely irrelevant as Windows programs replaced DOS programs for most users. On the other hand, some of the DOS users switched to operating systems unsupported by QEMM, such as Windows NT series and Linux.

The final version was QEMM 97, which was compatible with Windows 95 and later Windows 98/ME, but by this point, not only was DOS memory management no longer in high demand, but the remaining competitive DOS applications (including various GNU utilities, text editors) support EMS, XMS, or DPMI - which reduced demand for conventional memory - or had been ported to Windows 95 or higher. The availability of increasing RAM sizes at low cost served to reduce the need of MagnaRAM. Finally, modern PCI chipsets provide documented functionality to remove write protection from unused UMA; in many or most cases, this last fact eliminates the need for QEMM for even those relatively few users who use DOS applications and who might otherwise find QEMM essential.