-- Ed. Note: There has been some discussion on exactly where to put the
power driver and what setting to put it in. Some people say put it before 
the PCMCIA drivers or the Aero will hot-swap correctly. I have just checked
my config.sys and it is at the very end of mine. I have been using my aero
for a very long time with no problems, hot swapping the floppy drive often.
As for the setting ... some discussion will follow in a bit.
                              - Philip 

[Q] Are all those utilities that are loaded in my config.sys & autoexec.bat
really needed? I've been pretty spoiled by my desktop system that has 610K
lower memory free. On my Aero 4/25/84, the best I can get is about 560K using
MemMaker.

[A] If you don't need plug and play for your floppy, don't use any additional
PCMCIA devices and don't need automatic system clock resetting then commenting
out those lines should not cause any troubles.

[Q] What is PCMSMIX supposed to do, anyway?

[A] PCMSMIX was supposed to allow a computer in "STANDBY" to receive a fax (or
other modem comm.) and process it. Sort of a "wake-up" driver. HOWEVER, per
Compaq tech support, this is impossible with the Aero since the HARDWARE to do
so is absent in the Aero design. Turns out that PCMSMIX can cause a bevy of
problems in the Aero, depending upon which BIOS, PCMCIA, etc releases you run.

 -- Ed. Note: This mean nix the PCMSMIX! (comment it out with a semicolon)

[C] From: Jim Conforti

The programs left in memory after mine boots:


Name      Conventional    Upper  Source  Function
MSDOS           16,557        0       M  DOS
HIMEM            1,168        0       M  implements XMS and HMA
EMM386           4,144        0       M  implements UMBs
POWER               80    4,544       M  Microsoft power manager.
COMMAND          4,208        0       M  shell
MOUSE           20,768        0       M  mouse driver
SMARTDRV        27,488        0       M  disk cache
DOSKEY           4,144        0       M  command line editing
RAMDRIVE             0    5,328       M  ramdisk
SHARE                0   16,944       M  file-sharing and locking
CARDID               0   19,968       C  SystemSoft CardID
CS                   0   39,136       C  SystemSoft Card Services
SSVLSI           3,728        0       C  SystemSoft socket services
CMGRDRVR        16,768        0       I  Intel card manager driver
Free           556,176    7,120

Other CONFIG.SYS drivers not taking up memory, and what I've been able to learn
about them:

      DEVICE=C:\CARDMGR\CPR.SYS   comm port recover driver
      DEVICE=C:\CPQDOS\CSALLOC.EXE   SystemSoft Plug-N-Play Card Services
         Allocation Utility Version 2.04 (2243-05)
      INSTALL=C:\CARDMGR\CCMGR.EXE /D=0   Intel card configuration manager
         ver 3.01
      DEVICE=C:\CPQDOS\PCMSMIX.EXE   PCMSMIX Version 0.03.01 Copyright 1994
         SystemSoft Corporation "Supposed to allow a computer in 'standby' to
         receive a fax (or other modem comm) and process it. However, per 
         Compaq tech support, this is impossible with the Aero" 

- Jim Conforti

[Q] From what I read somewhere, I need "Socket Services" and "Card Services" 
to use the modem. I would like to know more about them, though. Judging from
Jim's comment (above), I can eliminate PCMSMIX. I am more curious about 
CARDID, SHARE, CMGRDRVR, and the others that aren't left in memory. Will I 
run into trouble if I remove them?

[A] Why are you running the Intel card manager? I thought the compaq manual
says not to run foreign card managers for cards that compaq can recognize. I'm
running my intel14.4 PCMCIA beast with just the stock areo software. I have run
into one nasty problem with delrina winfax lite that I think is due to badly
restoring the hard drive. winfax is the only program that doesn't recognize
com2 (I have to go an set the com port to 2 and then use it) yet every other
peice of software works like a charm with the modem Anybody else on this list
running the intel 14.4 modem without the intel card manager or did I goof
reading the manual?

[A] I am also running the Intel with only the Compaq software without a
problem.