Try FreeDOS... it's a clone of DOS.

http://www.freedos.org/

Hmm is there any other possibility? Because I have a SCSI CD-drive in that PC, and FreeDOS needs additional drivers which I don't have... So I can't install it...

Well even with MS-DOS you'd still need SCSI drivers. Try to find the DOS SCSI drivers for the SCSI Controller and CDROM.

This is assuming that FreeDOS doesn't have the drivers.

I have installed Dosbox on Win XP Pro and have attemped to load my old dos game Janes AH-64D Longbow (Helicopter Sim) all went fine until the message "you do not seem to have a disk caching utility such as SMARTDRV loaded". Can anyone help please?

You could also get a windows 98 boot disk (yes, it's the ms-dos 7.x that is running below windows) or go to www.bootdisk.com

Thank's for your help. As a novice pardon my ignorance, but do I run the floppy after booting up XP, then run DOSBOX and mount my game folder etc.?

thebay2 wrote:

Thank's for your help. As a novice pardon my ignorance, but do I run the floppy after booting up XP, then run DOSBOX and mount my game folder etc.?

NO. You do not need any DOS for DOSBOX. Just run DOSBOX in XP. See the newbie guide in the DOSBOX Guides forum.

Mirek

Except that he needs to run SMARTDRV because a game requires it. That means he'll probably want to boot some version of DOS inside of DOSBox that will let him run SMARTDRV (or can you run it directly from within DOSBox?)

@Gatnom/thebay2: It seems like you have 4 options:

1. Install & configure a real PC with MS-DOS 5.x/6.x (or version 7.x that comes with Win9x).
2. Install & configure a real PC with FreeDOS (an MS-DOS clone).

The downside to option 1 & 2 is that you will need to find & install all the necessary drivers for HIMEM, EMS, XMS, CD-drives, sound cards, mouse, etc, and you need to setup the necessary CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT stuff.

It is not easy, but it can be done. Especially the sound card driver can be a problem if the PC only has some fancy, new, on-board sound chip.

The advantage is that every game you install will work (well - 98% of them will).

3. Install & configure DOSBox using the built-in MS-DOS emulation.

This is the easiest option, but since the emulation is not complete (either by design or due to lack of time/knowledge/resources) not all games will run. E.g. one of you mentioned that your game checked for the presence of the SMARTDRV driver and refused to run if it was not loaded.

SMARTDRV is an optional part of DOS (it significantly speeds up harddisk and CD-ROM access by caching information in memory) and the game probably wants it to speed up access to sounds and graphics files stored on either the CD or the harddisk. But DOSBox does not include SMARTDRV (nor does it need it since the caching is taken care of by the real operating system, so this is one of those 'by design' omissions in DOSBox).

As HunterZ said, it might be possible to copy SMARTDRV from a real MS-DOS diskette/Windows 9x CD into the emulated C-drive in DOSBox and run it before running the game. If that is possible, then that is probably the easiest solution.

Alternatively, if the game is just checking CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT for a line that contains the word 'SMARTDRV' (instead of checking if a driver called SMARTDRV is actually loaded into memory), then you could try to create a dummy AUTOEXEC.BAT file in the emulated C-drive and create a line that says 'SMARTDRV'. That way, the game will find the word 'SMARTDRV' and happily assume that SMARTDRV is loaded and active - and you can start playing.

4. Install, configure, mount and boot DOSBox with MS-DOS 5.x/6.x (or version 7.x that comes with Win9x), or FreeDOS.

This is just as difficult (or more) as option 1 & 2 - except that you will not have any problem with finding & installing drivers for any on-board sound cards since DOSBox emulates a standard SoundBlaster card for you. The difficult part of this is that booting DOSBox with a real MS-DOS/FreeDOS is a new feature of DOSBox, and the documentation, guides and examples are work-in-progress so to speak.

My advice (if you have a spare PC) is to go for option 1. Buy a used SoundBlaster (or compatible) sound card ($10 - $20 ??) and a legit CD-ROM with Win98 and install it on the PC. As I said, configuring Win9x/MS-DOS 7.x will be a challenge for you, but it is a well-proven solution with a 99% succesful outcome.

If you do not have a spare PC, you can try to setup your current PC for dual booting Win98 and Win2000/WinXP - but this can be quite a challenge for someone with no or little experience in getting an old and a new OS to co-exist. And you will still need that SoundBlaster card.

Option 3 (loading or just faking SMARTDRV) is worth a try. It is easy to try - and it just might work.

Option 4 (booting DOSBox with real DOS) will be a ... learning experience ... for you, but if you feel like it go for it. We will all be eager to hear the result.

Thank's indeed for the options that you provided, once I have digested same I will certainly attempt to get it up and running. I am not a serious gamer but like an old shoe I particularly liked the Janes Longbow game and it would be a shame to throw it out. Thanks again I'll let you know how I progress.

Some versions of smartdrv need the exact dos version they came with (it's coded in almost any external command).

I would look around to get any 3rd party disk cache instead of smartdrv (which likes eating memory) or get the smartdrv shipped with win 3.x which has no "dos-lock" built in.

BTW you should also consider PTS Dos, though it costs money, it might be the only available option to run a modern machine with a real dos. I'm not happy with Caldera OpenDos (the successor of DR DOS)