If you can get the current CVS, DosBox has support for floppy and hard disk images.

The way I've implemented it, however, won't help you much unless you're willing to create a hard drive image and install MS-DOS 6.22 first.

That aside, there's a real easy way to install... use WinImage to dump all of the files from images into a single directory and install from there. The Windows install won't have any problems.

If you'd like to go the hard disk image route, here's how you do it...

Use BXIMAGE from Bochs to create your hard drive image (70MB should be good... doesn't work with anything larger ATM)

Then, in dosbox, type imgmount d <filename of image on host filesystem> -size <drive size parameters> -fs none
(For example: imgmount e: d:\test.img -size 512,63,16,142 -fs none)

Then, boot off of a DOS disk with 'boot <name of dosimage floppy>' (no quotes, of course.

In real DOS, fdisk and format (with system install) that hard drive image (which will now be at C, since real DOS doesn't see any of DosBox's mounted directories). Since an fdisk will require a reboot, shut down DosBox and start again, typing in the same imgmount and boot command... formating this time in DOS.

Restart DosBox... again this time,
imgmount d <filename of image on host filesystem> -size <drive size parameters>

(note no -fs none this time.. You'll actually be able to see the mounted image, file system and all, in your DosBox session)

type boot <windowsdisk1> <windowsdisk2> <windowsdisk3> <windowsdisk4> <etc> -l c

the "-l c" will boot off the hard drive. I hope you formated that drive with the system option! 😁 For example, to load up the windows disks, you might type: boot WIN1.IMG WIN2.IMG WIN3.IMG WIN4.IMG -l c. This all assumes that you are typing boot inside DosBox in a directory where those images are. Finally, run the setup on the first disk in drive A:. When it asks for the next disk, swap it by hitting the Ctrl-F4 key. This will swap out disk1, and bring in disk2. The next hit of Ctrl-F4 will swap in disk3, and so on until it comes back around to disk1.

I hope this makes sense. Like I said, its probably just easier for you to extract all those files to a single directory and install from there. I will say this, however, Windows in DosBox is more stable when booted to real MS-DOS.

I just found another kewl way to do this using floppy images on your hard drive. First I created a folder on my c drive called floppy. I then mounted the "floppy" folder as a floppy drive. mount a c:\floppy I would then use windows explorer and copy the contents of disk1 into the floppy directory. I ran the install program, and when I was asked to insert disk 2, I deleted the contents of the floppy folder and copied the contents of disk2 into the floppy folder. This simulated me inserting a floppy disk into and out of the drive. I continued doing this for all disks in the set until the program was installed. Hope this helps all with the problems of installing programs with multiple disks.

2Kewl

If you can find a set, there were some MSDN CD's around the Win95/NT 3.51 timeframe that had a bunch of Win3x install that would work from a directory tree - no diskettes needed. Many NLS versions of Windows were on the CD's too, not just US.

Might scope eBay a bit and see if you can turn one of these MSDN CD sets up. They've been very convenient for me...

Many programs on multiple floppies can be installed just by copying content of all floppies into one directory and running the installer there. Or sometimes it is possible to make subdirectories for individual floppies.
This may not work in all cases but it often does (e.g. it works for Borland compilers).

@CANADACOW: It would be good to add something about using images/booting from images into "DOSBOX Guides" and also update README. I also think that there is no proper description of parameters for IMGMOUNT in DOSBOX (I checked sources before getting the syntax right).

Mirek

Thanks to eveyone for the help. Installation is ok now.
I just have to find a way to get DB boot on win3.11 now 😀

type win in your windows folder 😉

it is also good to add those lines in dosbox.conf

[autoexec]
SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
SET PATH=Z:\;C:\WINDOWS

I hope you looked carefully at the screenshots and you might have discovered that win3.1 and win3.0 are displayed there.

NOT Win 3.11

Oh yeah, good point. Didn't notice, sorry!