Are you saying you have a patch that has to be applied to the exe on the original CD? Are you quite sure about that? Most of these no-CD cracks work by being applied to a copy (on a hard drive) of all the files on the CD. Other patches are generally applied to a game after install.

Maybe you should clarify exactly which patch you want to install and how you want to use it? If you just don't want to keep using your original CD, you can make an image of the CD on your hard drive (using ImgBurn or IsoBuster, for instance) and load the game in DOSBox from the CD image. The game program won't be able to tell the difference.

(It's possible to edit the files in a CD image, and even burn the image back to a disc afterwards, but it's a fairly messy business and I never found a good, free program that could do it.)

Also, this should not be in the DOS forum.

[Moved to DOSBox General Section]

Thanks for the quick feedback!
Yes, no CD crack was to preserve now hard-to get disk, so your image + DOSBOX solution would be the best alternative.
The patches, to which I refer, however, are more in the nature of bug fixes, mods and mission add-ons that are currently available, or may become so in the future. These are not usually affecting the .exe file, so I would hope that they would not screw with the install that is now being handled by DOSBOX and the frontend interface. If that is so, I should be able to just apply the patch or mod in the new file location?

Gryffon wrote:

The patches, to which I refer, however, are more in the nature of bug fixes, mods and mission add-ons that are currently available, or may become so in the future. These are not usually affecting the .exe file, so I would hope that they would not screw with the install that is now being handled by DOSBOX and the frontend interface. If that is so, I should be able to just apply the patch or mod in the new file location?

Er, what?

You would install them however you would normally have installed them on an ordinary DOS machine.

To copy the patch into the game files folder right click on the profile and select "Open game folder in Explorer" in D-Fend Reloaded, then copy the patch files to this folder.

To apply the patch start the "DOSBox DOS" profile, go the the game directory "cd <GameDirectory>" and do whatever the readme for the patch says.