Are you trying to run it from the CD? Be sure that you have mounted a "C:" drive as well before running the install.

Some games (especially Sierra ones) need to have the cd mounted with the "-t cdrom" enabled when the cd is mounted.
Otherwise the game presumes it is already installed on the hard drive and the install.exe starts running as a way of configuring the game instead of installing it.
Given that the game is on a cd, it is unable to write the config file and causes a problem.

Well, that may be the issue, somewhat. I'm not running the install from a CD, but just from a directory on my HD. Saved this game from a set of floppies. The installer runs, asks for options, then just wont save a config file. I'm wondering if its a filesystem issue.

Also, the C: I'm mounting is the folder that the space quest files are stored in. Its been effin ages since I've used DOS, so I'm wondering if this is also a cause of the problem.

Thanks for your replies so far, and let me know if you think of anything.

Don't know how to check if files are Read-Only on OSX but you may want to check that.

I guess a good question would be is, has anyone successfully run Space Quest 4 under Dosbox?

If you check the Dosbox homepage you will see that it is listed as supported at least since version 0.65.
Did you check whether you are allowed to write (or whether the files are read-only) in the directory the game is in?

Yes it works fine. I've beaten it twice within DOSBox. Anyway, it's the original sq4 too.

Check to make sure your mounted location is not read-only (or the files themselves) as the other poster suggested. I've had this cause problems with other games (like Tyrian2k)

Also, try lowering the cpu cycles during the setup, sometimes the hardware detection gets weird if the cycles are too high...

Last idea, if it's something to do with mounting...
DOSBox 0.72 can just open the file (on *nix anyway, handles ~/ locations beautifully)...
For me under Ubuntu Linux, right click the installer, "Open with" dosbox. For the game itself, run sq4.bat.
Not sure if it will make a difference, but worth a try for such a great game. 😀

Try starting the install program by typing INSTALL /F. That forces it to enter install mode instead of configure mode.

rasol wrote:

I guess a good question would be is, has anyone successfully run Space Quest 4 under Dosbox?

No - a good question would be: How the [censored] did you mount up your DOSBox drives?

And why did you mount them the way you did?