MiniMax wrote:
I beg to differ. With the right scripting tools, I can do the equivalent of 50 lines of code in 5 lines of scripting. 😜
I'm just teasing... 😁
Too many people became hooked on Vlad's LaunchPad, which hides from them that just a PIF file and two custom AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT were being setup and used. Therefore they never seem to realize that all they need is DOSDRV.EXE and possibly a command-line pointer to a custom VDMS.INI file.
So for the original poster, he does not even need to use a script, just a WinXP CMD file and a WinXP PIF file to call a DOS batch file.
Say he has the game SYNDICATE WARS located in M:\DosGames\SWARS, which uses MAIN.EXE to start the game.
Inside said sub-directory would be:
****************************
There would be a MAIN.PIF with the parameter set properly for the MAIN.EXE file but actually calls the PLAY.BAT file.
There might be a custom AUTOEXEC.NT file for the game called by the PIF.
There might be a custom CONFIG.NT file for the game called by the PIF.
There would be a MAIN.EXE for the SYNDICATE WARS main executable.
There might be a custom VDMS.INI file for VDMsound configuration for SYNDICATE WARS with all the proper VDMS configuration parameters.
There would be a PLAY.BAT that has the execution of DOSDRV.EXE, then the SYNDICATE WARS executable MAIN.EXE command-line parameters.
The DOS batch file PLAY.BAT might look as follows:
****************************************
@Echo off
cls
DOSDRV.EXE -i:VDMS.INI
MAIN.EXE /w /g
****************************************
The DOSDRV.EXE is picked up in the WinXP PATH, since if VDMsound is properly installed the VDMsound sub-directory is in the PATH statement.
So to start the NTVDM for the SYNDICATE WARS DOS executable program MAIN.EXE via the WinXP START command:
START /HIGH /DM:\DosGames\SWARS M:\DosGames\SWARS\MAIN.PIF
This gives him what he wants without a script, just using a lowly CMD and BAT file to run some DOS game at HIGH priority in the WinXP NTVDM with the VDMsound DOSDRV.EXE (Virtual Device Driver (VDD) that Vlad wrote) loaded before the DOS game is executed.
It is what he really wanted to do, not try to make the LaunchPad shell scriptable. 🤣
dvwjr