Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why doesn't 7-max 5.00 work on my computer?

7-max 5.00 works only in Windows 2003 / XP x64.

If you use Windows 2000 or Windows XP 32-bit, you can try 7-max 4.01, but 7-max 4.01 is very unstable in some systems and it can hang or crash your system. 7-max 5.00 is more stable than 7-max 4.01.

Why doesn't 7-max 4.01 work on my computer?

If you use Windows XP, install Windows XP Service Pack 2. It fixes some problems.

7-max 4.01 works only in special system mode. So 7-max 4.01 changes boot.ini file. The boot.ini file is a text file that stores boot options for computers running Windows operating systems. When the computer starts, the operating system loader reads the boot.ini file and displays the entries for each operating system in the boot menu.

7-max 4.01 creates new item in boot.ini file with special switches. 7-max 4.01 doesn't change original entry in boot.ini, so at rebooting you can select which mode do you want: original mode or 7-max mode. The most problem switch is /3GB. Some computers can't boot with that switch. We suppose that it's because of incorrect hardware drivers.

So, if you can't boot in 7-max mode and still want to use 7-max, you can try to find and solve the problem. At first, you must install new instance of system (Windows 2000 or XP) to some other drive. Then install 7-max before installing your hardware drivers. Then if your computer can boot in 7-max mode with new system, you can try to install your hardware drivers by one at a time, and reboot after each driver installing. So you can find driver that doesn't work in 7-max mode. If you find such driver, you can try to find new version of that driver from hardware vendor and report them about incompatibility with /3GB switch in boot.ini file.

7-max 4.01 also can't work with Windows XP SP2 installed in some modern CPUs that support NoExecute feature. In that case Windows enables PAE mode. 7-max can't work in PAE mode. To disable PAE mode you must add switch /noexecute=alwaysoff to boot.ini.

Why does 7-max increase the speed?

All modern CPUs (Core, Core 2, Pentium 3/4/M/D, Celeron, Athlon XP/64/FX, Turion, Sempron, Duron ...) support small (4 Kbytes) and large (2/4 Mbytes) RAM pages. But Windows by default uses only small pages. It's much simpler for CPU to handle large (2/4 MB) pages than big number of small (4 KB) pages. So programs that use large pages work faster than programs using small pages. If you run some application with 7-max, 7-max modifies memory allocation calls to allow application to use large pages, and it's possible that application will work faster.

How to uninstall 7-max 4.01?

Before uninstalling 7-max 4.01 you must remove 7-max items in Tools / Boot options. Or you can edit boot.ini file in text editor, if you understand commands of that file.