Some games will work in a DOS prompt. You can create a shortcut to the game, and then edit the shortcut properties to set up what the game requires. If you really want, you can also set the shortcut to reboot the system with a customized boot sequence. The problem with that is that you will basically have to boot your system twice to play some games.

I prefer to set Windows so that it only loads if you tell it to manually (with the "win" command.) You do this by editing the msdos.sys file (it is a text file despite the name) and change "BootGUI=1" to "BootGUI=0". You have to make sure you remove the protections on the file first (attrib msdos.sys -s -h -r) and then turn them back on after (attrib msdos.sys +s +h +r). I have set up a boot menu to chose boot options to either load windows normally, boot to DOS with (and without) CD-Rom drivers. This allows me to decide at boot. I have some games that run fine with Windows that I set up shortcuts to. I have some games that need a CD to run and don't run well with Windows and I boot to DOS with CD support. Finally I have some games that have excessive conventional memory requirements that I boot to DOS without CD Support. In the second two options, the end of the boot sequence goes to a special directory that has BAT files to run each game. A simple DIR command is enough to help me remember what is and isn't installed. Games without a CD that do not have memory requirements will have a BAT file in both directorys (WCDGames & NCDGames). But that's just me.

Yeah I have a DOS boot menu on my Win98 machine, i.e. DOS 7 or Windows.

Works like a charm.

creative have files called "CTLOAD.EXE" (or was it CTLOAD.COM ?)
with that you can load a .SYS files on command line, that usualy need to be load using DEVICE(HIGH)= in CONFIG.SYS

I use that to load CD-ROM driver on dos 7 (BOOTGUI=0), if the games requires CD-ROM support.

I try to do all DOS gaming out of W98se on my retro rigs for convenience sake. As mentioned previously sometimes you need to edit the properties of a game shortcut [right click shortcut ->Advanced] to hand modify one or more variables. "Prevent MS-DOS-based programs from detecting Windows" is an option I toggle a lot and it's all I need to do. Sometimes it can get a bit fussy but 90% of the time it goes smoothly.

There are the games that refuse to run unless the system re-boots to DOS [3rd option in the "Prevent..." menu], in which case you'll need to have your bat/sys boot files configured for the necessary conventional ram and CDR to run properly.

Going through the boot menu like others have noted makes a lot of sense if you have more than a few games that need to reboot to DOS anyway. I don't so I go through the extra step.

rgart wrote:

Is the windows 98 command prompt sufficient for Dos Gaming?

Maybe you should be clear on this;
Do you intend to just use DOS 7 as installed by Windows 9X - In which case you could consider to install DOS 7 manually on its own - or are you also considering launching DOS games from within Windows 98?

DOS 7 has a different version number, which gives problems with some creative labs utils which just refuse after a version check. But we found simple ways to work around that (EG: CTCM /T).

Launching from within Windows 98 is a different subject. With its own advantages and problems.

Lately Windows 98 'Minimize' is my favority lazy interface of launching DOS programs+games, and directing audio files to many different DOS players.

Win98 will run approximately 99.88298% of all DOS games.

I can confirm as well. Been using Windows 98SE with custom boot menu (thanks to the good folks from this forum btw, it has several different options, like choosing between HIMEM/HIMEMX or 'no EMM' for picky games like Ultima VII) for several months, for both DOS and Windows classics, and so far every game I tested works great. Sure, some crazy bugs emerged now and then (crash upon exiting Anvil of Dawn, menu issue in Little Big Adventure 1), but everything runs with sound and is playable.

FeedingDragon wrote:

I have set up a boot menu to chose boot options to either load windows normally, boot to DOS with (and without) CD-Rom drivers. This allows me to decide at boot. I have some games that run fine with Windows that I set up shortcuts to. I have some games that need a CD to run and don't run well with Windows and I boot to DOS with CD support...

Could you tell me how to configure that boot options? I want to load cdrom drivers on ms-dos. I have also a lot of dos games complaining about the memory manager...

Thanks a lot!

I don't remember the exact way of doing things, and my compatibility system is currently packed away. I do remember a bit, maybe you can google the details. the first entry (IIRC) was [MENU] followed by lines such as "MENUITEM=DOS,Boot into DOS mode" I do remember you could set up sub menus as well, though I don't remember exactly how that was done. Also, it would pass the final "selection" name (DOS in the above example iirc,) as a variable to the autoexec.bat file as well. So you could have lines such as "IF %menu%==DOS GOTO BootDos" followed by a label ":BootDos" that it would skip to if DOS was the passed value (note: I'm almost positive that %menu% was NOT the correct variable name, I just don't remember off hand and it's 2am here right now.)

As for game that require non-standard special boots, such as those that don't like emm386.exe, or have weird files= or stacks= requirements, I had a 4th entry that went straight to a sub-menu of games that required highly specialized boots. Those usually would just load the game up automatically. So my menu would first look like:

1. Boot to Windows98
2. Boot to DOS with CD
3. Boot to DOS no CD
4. Special Game Boot

Followed by a second menu (if I chose 4,) that looked something like:

1. Ultima VII
2. Serpent Isle
3. Some other game with weird requirements
etc....

I don't remember off hand if there is a maximum number of menu items, but if there is, you could just have the last entry be "more" or break the special games up into groups, such as Advnture, RPG, etc... That would be up to you. Personally, I never had more that 4 or 5 games installed that required non-standard boot sequences, and all of those I've migrated over to play in DOSBox now.

MS-DOS 7.1 is the way to go!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtlRnPoNNUc&li … _eeUW74SzgbVqyX

Boot menu, Ultima gameplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVbue9qYYkE&li … _eeUW74SzgbVqyX

Well, couldn't get to sleep, so I did some google research. My memory is a lot clearer now.

Actually the you can go to the following website to get a good idea of how to use it. The only command that isn't present is "menudefault=NAME,TIME" where NAME is the name of the menu entry that the system will chose by default (the first entry after menuitem= or submenu=) and TIME is how long it will wait to select the default entry in seconds (giving you the chance to change it, the time stops if you use the arrow keys to scroll through the menu.) I did notice at this web site shows that you can back up in the menus, something I actually didn't know. Also, at the link below, he had his autoexec.bat IF block wrong. %CONFIG% will equal the final "MENUITEM" selected. The "SUBMENU" selections are only ever used internally to the config.sys file. You will not leave the menu system until you have selected a MENUITEM. If the post hadn't been so old, I would have created an account just to explain this to him.

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=26161.0

As for the menu example in the video, it didn't take in the possibility of error (whether it is a computer memory glitch or a typo.) This is why I like the patterned commands I use. For example:

1IF "%CONFIG%" == "" GOTO Error
2IF %CONFIG% == DOS GOTO DOS
3IF %CONFIG% == WIN GOTO WIN
4
5:Error
6echos Oops there was a problem, check your files for spelling errors and try again.
7GOTO END

The GOTO END is important as autoexec.bat will just keep running through lines regardless of labels, so you need to put it at then end of every boot sequence, or it will try to run not only the boot sequence you selected, but all boot sequences that come after it. Config.sys, on the other hand, will only run the sequence selected and the [COMMON] sequences. IIRC, I have 2 [COMMON] sections (which is fine, though 2 [DOS] sections can cause problems.) One before all the selectable blocks, and one after. Other than a few key commands, it runs the commands in the order they appear in the file, and in some cases, for memory management, it is best to insure that some commands take place before others. In the autoexec.bat, you would want the commands that you want to run first in ALL sequences before the first IF statement, and the ones you want to run after all the sequences after the ":END" label. Though, I've never at any time put anything there.

Not sure if a 486 is upto playing games from within windows, But if your using Dos 7 as a OS in its own right you'll also save diskspace as you dont have to worry about all the utils, etc that a games PC has no use for.
I just do a sys a: c:, copy accross any drivers, himem/emm few useful commands like copy, edit.com and thats the OS done.

I would think any games that care about dos version would be so old that ver6 would also casue problems. SB16 and above have true Dos7 drivers