I am not sure why you want to get this to run in Win3x in DOSBox when you could just play it natively in Windows, other than just to say you did it.

If I can get it to run in win3.1 then it is portable, and I can put it with the rest of my dosbox game collections which is a menu system I've built with a custom front end which allows me to browse every game I own, look at art assets and info scraped from various games db's, and play it all off an external drive from either my htpc, my laptop, or desktop. To get it to run in dows requires an install process to my base OS, fixes, and several other things that make it a non portable install.

Your question is almost like asking why scummvm exists, when most of those games can be played natively in their OS as well. But scummvm makes the game portable and available across multiple platforms. A Win3.x + Dosbox install may not accomplish as much as a game supported by scummvm, but it is much more compatible and portable than a game tweaked to run in windows.

Dosbox can be run on other platforms example. ES2 installed in Windows can't.

I didn't mean it is a derogatory way, I was just puzzled, that is all. No need to get testy. Your points as to why make sense, at least from the mobile point of view, but I imagine that the Win32 version would work better on other platforms with WINE, if WINE is supported on it. Many of the Sierra Family games of the era that supported both Win3x and Win9x often did not run that well in Win3x.

suffice to say that when i make posts I spend more time explaining reasons and motives than actually working towards a solution. It gets to a point where I weight the cost/benefit of even typing up an issue knowing that the responses have a high chance of not being useful.

If I wanted to run the game in windows, I would have likely started by checking your site for a windows installer. However my goal is to get it running in win 3.1. You are obviously an expert at getting these games running in windows and on modern day systems, so I can see why you would suggest that as an alternate route However this is a case where the alternate route simply isn't an option, as it defeats my end goals.

I am not sure why you have become so defensive. No reason for getting your panties in a bunch. I was just trying to understand what you were trying to do. Chill.

I don't know what tone you are choosing to read my post with, but I assure you that you are taking it much more defensive than it was written. Beyond saying that you are obviously very good at what you do, but that in this case it is not what i am trying to do - I don't know how else I can put it. "Chill" is advice you ought to take yourself.

You have essentially hijacked my post at this point and made it all about you and the way you would do things. I have patiently explained repeatedly now. You really don't need to understand why i am trying to get it to run, as last i checked there was no pre-req for posting on here that I had to get everyone on board. *That* can be read in an offensive tone, because at this point I'm sick of repeatedly trying to find nice ways to get back on topic.

*pondering whether to lock this topic as you are sick of it anyways*

Collector, I am assuming you are the same person from the Sierra Help forums?
I've been trying to get Earthsiege 2 running for the past 12 hours to no avail. It seems my problem is unique - the game starts up fine, runs through the intros, but then it freezes up at the main menu. Sometimes if I'm quick enough I can click on a button but it locks up all the same, sometimes does it during the intro too. The VSHELL.exe process is using up an entire core and if I set it to use both, damn, will it use them. I have applied all the compatibility fixes and whatnot with Compatibility Administrator and I've tried various combos of compatibility settings via properties on both ES.exe and VSHELL.exe.
I'm considering doing the whole virtual machine business but I tried it not long ago for Interstate '76 and I fell at the first hurdle pretty much.
I know this might not exactly be on topic, but this is the most recent thread I can find about Earthsiege. You guys seem to generally know what you're on about so I hope you can help.

I was able to get it working within dosbox running win 3.x. However, according to people here, it's better to just run it in natively in windows (obviously something that doesn't work all that well for everyone).

If you are interested in pursuing that route, PM me. I see no point in discussing it in the thread as I get tired of trying to keep things on topic and not constantly answering hypotheticals.

*sends an anti-polemic chill pill*

did you see a single thing in this thread that was helpful? Nope.

Last time I posted something in here I had some white knight come along and accuse me of being a pirate and I had to post a picture of my discs. By the time I got to that point though, the topic had already been derailed.

It is frustrating to be working on something, post to a community that should technically contain the most knowledgeable people on the topic, and have a very high probability of the topic getting derailed.

For all of collector's protests above that he was "just asking a question", when I gave him an answer as to why I was pursuing this solution he continued to argue that he thought the 32 bit version was the way to go. At that point I don't have a lot of options left other than to hope someone else comes along and isn't put off by the fact the topic has already been derailed. There is no arguing though that these forums have a tendency to not exactly be friendly, what with people just waiting to accuse users of being pirates an questioning why they want to use dosbox in the first place.

I'm offering to help Morbo here though. Something that no one else is doing yet.

*sues the drugstore - obviously the pill isn't working*

Same "vshell.exe" error under Windows 3.11. I talk about the version 1.13 of the game.

Any help?

P.S. I want to run this game from DOSBox since it is part of my MS-DOS game collection. Reason why I do not want to make it work from any other operating system and I am requesting help for run under Windows 3.11

Thanks

Closed.
Open your own thread for your issue.