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Getting a DOS game to run in Windows XP

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Darkhawk28

Diamond Member
I have recently purchased a DOS game from way back in 1995. The game requires DOS version 6.2 or greater. Like a dummy, I forgot that Windows XP isn't DOS based in any form. I'm just wondering though is there a work around this. The game's installation stops and tells me that DOS is required and quits out. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Wonder if you can use the program capatibility wizard on it and tell it to
run it like windows 95 and see if it will work?
 
Why not open a command console and try running it. I tried running a DOS version of a game in WinXP and it ran way too fast and wierd. You might get it to work using a Version statement to trick windows into slowing down or something. Pure DOS Games should run in a partition of their own if it has DOS in the same partition. XP can probably do a dual boot with a Win95 Boot Disk.
 
Did you just say you purchased a DOS game? Like you bought it? What possessed you to do that? 😉
 
I bought it because I got into a nostalgic mood. Game only cost me $5, so I'm not too terribly worried about the money. Does anybody know if DOS emulators work?
 
nostalgia 🙂 yeah it pissed me off that i can no longer run any of the mechwarrior2 games anymore, because they make direct calls to .vxd files 🙁

mechwarrior 2: mercenaries is my favorite game of all time too -_-
 
Quest For Fame... you know, the one with the virtual pick and all that. LOL

I download the dosbox program... now how in the world do I use it? LOL
 
As many people know playing old dos games on newer computer systems. The game will play so fast it's kinda of makes it hard to play. I have this old DOS game from 1988 that I still play now and then. I found this one link that has a very handy little program that will let you use only a part of the processor power. Making it let the old dos games run at the speed they was meant to play at.

I hope this link will help others out that still likes to play the old DOS games like I do.


http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/

 
Also do a search for VOGONS... Very Old Games On New Systems.

And BTW, I don't think DOSBOX works with DOS4GW.EXE games. I did get The Catacomb Abyss to work properly with DOSBOX.
 
Originally posted by: shuttleteam
Create a 2GB FAT16 partition and use a DOS 6.22 bootdisk.

-DAK-
Click to expand...

Even with dual booting you are very, very likely to have problems with getting the sound to work. Your best bet is to have an old computer with an actual SoundBlaster 16-bit in it and make it a dedicated DOS machine.

 
I agreee get another computer for dos games it will work much better, newer sound cards, modems, and NICs, have a hard time working in DOS but it is not Impossible to get them to work if you find the right DOS drivers for them.

Anyone know where i can find some DOS sound card drivers for an Audigy 2 card? 🙂
 
DOS drivers for an Audigy 2.... nope. Doesn't ring a bell. 🙂

I did manage to get DOS drivers for an Ensoniq sound card.... but it was painful. The only one's I could download were for Windows 3.1. So I actually had to install Windows 3.1 (ugh!) and then the soundcard drivers. I copied the soundcard drivers to a different directory, invoked them in the config.sys and autoexec.bat, and deleted Windows 3.1. It worked!
 
Even with dual booting you are very, very likely to have problems with getting the sound to work. Your best bet is to have an old computer with an actual SoundBlaster 16-bit in it and make it a dedicated DOS machine.
Click to expand...

Very true...

I have an old BX6/P3 450 system. I have a SB16 SCSI ISA card from 1994. Throw in a 2GB IDE HDD and an old 8X Plexwriter SCSI drive for CD access. That should make a nice gaming computer. I think I have a copy of QEMM 7.5 lying around as well. My wife wants to play those old Sierra Games on it. 🙂

-DAK-
 
Another EXTREMELY useful set of DOS utilities are the multimedia cloaking drivers... can't think of who made them... damn it.

Anyway, they consisted of mouse, CD-ROM, and a disk cache driver which would leave a small pointer/footprint in main memory and load the rest of themselves above the 640K main memory. I've been able to get a default boot of 590k main memory after loading drivers for:
-mouse
-cd-rom
-network
-disk caching
-ansi.sys (well, actually the smaller improved nansi.sys)
-and of course the standard himem.sys and emm396.exe

MS-DOS 6.22's memmaker.exe is a very, very useful utility for freeing up enough main memory.
 
Aaaaaahhh those were indeed the days... Perhaps a poll is in order:

How many startup options did you programm your Autoexec.bat0/config.sys to have in the DOS age?

At the hight of it I had 3 options:

2 modes with QEMM, one with all drivers for the entire system. This was OK for some games and Windoze 3.11 *shudder* the other was a EMM pure bred with just sound a mouse loaded, my path to TIE-Fighter bliss 😀
Another mode was without EMM but with CD-Rom... I think it was for a flight sim, but I can't remember which. I think it was Comanche but I am not sure.


 
Actually I had (have) an obsession with making ONE bootup do EVERYTHING. Back in the DOS days, I re-wrote my autoexec.bat and config.sys over and over and over just to get EVERYTHING loaded at once.

In fact, once I got the damn thing stable, I didn't actually want to do anything. I had more fun forcing the system to load every driver at once with enough memory available than I did running the applications that needed the memory.
 
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