Neville wrote:

I really can't understand why anybody would like to install MS-DOS in DOSBox

I use ms-dos 6.22 in dosbox, because I use dosbox to fully simulate an old computer since I use dosbox not just for games but also for windows 3.1 and for some other applications too, it feels more authentic this way, and I don't want to buy an old computer just for this.
After much fiddling with dosbox.conf I managed to configure it so the machine it will simulate will be like a 486 with 33mhz CPU, 8MB RAM and 2MB of videoram, which is enough for most of the things I run with dosbox.
I know a lot of you consider it a nuisance, but for me it feels very nostalgic to fiddle with memmaker, mouse drivers and other dos stuff, so the system will work well, and this is the closest thing to actually buying an old PC.

Just curious: Does the DOS-Window inside Win 3.11 work if you install MS-DOS inside Dosbox? What about the other (few) limitations?

Actually, I have not yet come across a dos app that dosbox is not capable of running off... !

i.e. Autocad R12 - just falls back to prompt.

In Win95 the commandline window doesn't work (and it's better left unopened), Win 3.11 GUI on DOS I didn't try so far.

acad12 worked fine for me, despite dongle-difficulties

Mine doesn't... but it's not so important.

AuatCad for 3.11 works for me, but I have a real dongle. Two or three, actually. Collected when the school dumped the old AutoCad when they bought Win95 machines and newer versions of the software. Few friends have some dongles also.

Radinor wrote:

Neville wrote:

I really can't understand why anybody would like to install MS-DOS in DOSBox

[...]

I know a lot of you consider it a nuisance, but for me it feels very nostalgic to fiddle with memmaker, mouse drivers and other dos stuff, so the system will work well, and this is the closest thing to actually buying an old PC.

But if it is full PC emulation you are after, why use DOSBox instead of Virtual PC / VMWare or VirtualBox, to name a few virtualization programs? Just curious, looks to me that your goal would have been easier to reach with those.

Neville wrote:

Radinor wrote:

Neville wrote:

I really can't understand why anybody would like to install MS-DOS in DOSBox

[...]

I know a lot of you consider it a nuisance, but for me it feels very nostalgic to fiddle with memmaker, mouse drivers and other dos stuff, so the system will work well, and this is the closest thing to actually buying an old PC.

But if it is full PC emulation you are after, why use DOSBox instead of Virtual PC / VMWare or VirtualBox, to name a few virtualization programs? Just curious, looks to me that your goal would have been easier to reach with those.

Because the machine that Virtual PC and Vmware emulates is too fast, it is like running dos on a Pentium II PC, and if I remember correctly, Virtual PC had problems with running some dos applications correctly, and I think that the timing of Vmware is either too fluctuating to mimic a constant CPU speed, or it has some issues with the framerate of the video output, because I think it looked like when the frameskip is set high in dosbox.
I'm not really sure about these facts because I tried running dos with these emulators a long time ago, but I think while these emulators are perfect for windows95,98 and other operating systems that need more power, dosbox is the best emulator for dos.

Yeah, you're right. Those virtual machine programs would probably speed up older games.

On the other hand, there's moslo and CPU Killer, and the chance to run Windows 95 or 98 also compensates. Those systems were great for DOS gaming.

Someone asked how to create disk images, and DosFreak wrote:

>Read the Windows 9x on DosBox guide:
>Windows 9x DOSBox Guide (Not officially supported)

When I click on that link, I get:

The topic or post you requested does not exist

I looked on the DosBox guide forum, but there was only 1 page,
and I did not see anything with Windows 95 or 98 or 9x in the
title.

Any idea where this information is currently?

Thanks!

That thread was moved to a private forum since it involved installing Windows 9x in DOSBox which isn't officially supported.

1. Download latest DosBox CVS and unzip. (As of this writing 12-14-2007)
2. Download Bochs and copy bximage.exe to where you unzipped DosBox.
3. Execute Bximage.exe.
a. Choose "hd"
b. Choose "flat"
c. Choose the size you want. I chose 512meg. Whatever size you choose will be the real size on your system. So if you choose to create a 512meg HD image then it will take up 512meg on your system. (DosBox doesn't support images that grow). If you are using Windows NT then you can use NTFS compressionon on the image to reduce filesize. (So an empty 512meg HD image will only take up 4kb of space with nothing in it).
d. Name it whatever you like, preferably small. I named mine 512.img.

** As of DosBox CVS 12-14-2007 it looks like DosBox only supports 512meg images. This has been verified by creating various images, mounting them, executing FDISK and creating partitions. Any image sizes past 512meg and partitions would not be created. FDISK would load for image sizes past 512meg all the way up to 2048 but would not create partitions for them.

After 2048 FDISK would not even load. So if you are using Official DosBox CVS then as of 12-14-2007, 512meg is the highest supported size for HD
images.

4. Make a backup copy of the image so you don't have to bother recreating it again. (Remember use NTFS compression on it or compress it with a compression program).

5. You will next need a floppy image of MS-DOS.

6. Name the floppy images something small like DOS622-1.ima through DOS622-3.ima.

7. Copy the floppy images to the DosBox directory.

8. Open DosBox.conf in the DosBox directory and make sure that the [Autoexec] section looks like this:

mount c .
C:
"imgmount 2 xxxx.img -size 512,63,16,1021 -fs none

The above will automatically perform the commands whenever you launch DosBox.

10. Now execute DosBox and it should perform the above commands automatically

11. Type in "Boot xxx.ima" to boot your first floppy image.

12. It's been awhile since I last installed MS-DOS. IIRC, when you boot off of the disk then it should go straight into setup and if your HD isn't already formatted then it will format the partition for you. If you do not want it to do so then I believe you can either hold down SHIFT while the image is booting or press SHIFT+F5 to enter command line mode and format the HD yourself. DOSBox is very fast at booking so you may either have to use a modified boot disk to format your drives or I believe you can exit MS-DOS setup to the command line and format from there.

13. Once at the command line then run "FDISK".
14. Choose option 1 "Create DOS Partition".
15. Choose option 1 "Create Primary DOS Partition".
16. Choose Y for "Do you wish to use the maximum available size..."
17. Press ESC to exit FDISK and then shut down DosBox.

18. Perform step #11, again I'm not sure if MS-DOS will automatically format the partition or not. If not the read the below instructions:

19. Type in "Format c:" to format the image. Enter a label if you wish and press ENTER.
20. When the format is done go to your A:\ drive and type in setup to start MS-DOS setup or you can probably just restart DOSBox and boot off of the image.
21. When MS-DOS setup is done then close DosBox.
22. You can now remove the "imgmount 2 xxx.img -size 512,63,16,1021 -fs none" from DOSBox.conf. When these instructions were written is was before the autosize detection was introduced into DOSBox. It should work fine now but I haven't tested this in quite awhile.
23. type in "Boot xxx.img" to boot your HD image.

Supposedly DOSBox supports images greater than 512 but I've never gotten it to work.

Details here:

v0.71's image file size detection

Sorry for bumping the old thread, but is it possible to mount the CD-ROM somehow? Internal mscdex don't work in this case and mounted CD-drive or imgmounted iso aren't visible to MS-DOS; tried to install some genereal CD-ROM drivers - they don't see any CD drive installed. And mounting as primary/slave device works only for HDD images, not for the actual drives or CD images.

Nope.