Most likely it is due to the RAM, but there's always the possibility it could be something else. Go here and download the Demo version of the RAM Patch and install it. It will run for 10 minutes, and should allow you to determine whether you can boot Windows 95 without the Protection Error or not before the time expires. If it fixes your problem, you will know that the RAM is at fault. Then you can decide whether to purchase the full version, or to reduce your RAM to 512MB or less. unknown invalid or uncompressed vm32