So, my question: Is there a way (or a DOSBox command) to execute a Windows (or other external) program when DOSBox is shutdown? Both of the above could be modified to shutdown DOSBox, and then execute the RUNDLL32 commands.

You can make a batch file kill a process, via either TASKKILL (built into XP and above) or various utilities - the one I've seen used a lot is pskill from sysinternals.

-Frob

Tskill only (vs. Taskkill)
for XP Home

I'm a bit confused. How would Taskkill be of help in a batch file running within a DOSBox mounted drive? In other words, the batch file commands above that load a PDF into Adobe (as well as start the Windows Media Player) are contained within the actual batch file that is running under DOSBox.

I'm a bit confused. How would Taskkill be of help in a batch file running within a DOSBox mounted drive? In other words, the batch file commands above that load a PDF into Adobe (as well as start the Windows Media Player) are contained within the actual batch file that is running under DOSBox.

I guess I didn't parse your original question properly. I saw "rundll32" and figured that had to be an actual Windows batch file, since Dosbox doesn't shell out or have a built-in for rundll32. Now I see that this must be your old Win98 batch file or something, and you want it to run in Dosbox.

No, Dosbox doesn't currently do what you want. You could hack in some sort of "DOS command" for the Dosbox shell that stored a string or struct, and then call a CreateProcess on the data as Dosbox is shutting down (applicable source is in src/shell)

you can make a start.bat file this way:

dosbox.exe
bat4win.bat

inside dosbox you can have a config.bat file that modifies bat4win.bat so that you can decide inside dosbox what will be run (if anything) after you quit dosbox.

robertmo wrote:

you can make a start.bat file this way:
dosbox.exe
bat4win.bat

minor point maybe
but shouldn't you CALL explicitly the inner, nested .bat from the outer one
I mean:

dosbox.exe
call bat4win.bat

Since there are no commands past that un-called batch file call, it doesn't matter.

I thought that inner call *.bat would be needed for the called batch to return execution to the caller when it's done.
I see what you mean, though.

for the called batch to return execution to the caller when it's done.

Yes, you better *should* use call, but in this case it's not needed. Or did i miss something?

This works perfectly! I can use DOSBox to run my CONQUER.BAT batch file menu, and then if one of the two RUNDLL32 command lines is selected, have DOSBox shutdown and run it 😀 As an example, the "Play Music" selection:

These are the lines in my DOSBox.conf configuration file:

1"[autoexec]" section of DOSBox.conf:
2
3[autoexec]
4# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
5MOUNT C C:\GAMES
6MOUNT D D:\ -T cdrom
7C:
8CD\CONQUER
9CALL CONQUER.BAT
10EXIT

I start DOSBox using this batch file (STARTHIS.BAT):

1Contents of STARTHIS.BAT:
2
3@ECHO OFF
4C:\DOSBox\DOSBox.exe -conf C:\GAMES\CONQUER\DOSBox.conf
5DOTHIS.BAT

In my CONQUER.BAT batch file menu, I have these lines (the "QUIT" label is the normal clean exit from the CONQUER.BAT):

1The required lines in CONQUER.BAT:
2
3:PLAYMUSIC
4CLS
5@ECHO Battle control terminated. Press any key to exit and play the Command and
6@ECHO Conquer music...
7PAUSE>NUL
8@ECHO RUNDLL32 URL.DLL,FileProtocolHandler "MEDIA\MUSIC\Command and Conquer.m3u">DOTHIS.BAT
9GOTO ENDRUNDLL32
10
11:QUIT
12CLS
13@ECHO Battle control terminated. Press any key to exit...
14PAUSE>NUL
15GOTO ENDCLEAN
16
17:ENDCLEAN
18@ECHO>DOTHIS.BAT
19
20:ENDRUNDLL32

...which either blanks out the "DOTHIS.BAT" batch file, or adds the following to it:

1Contents of DOTHIS.BAT:
2
3RUNDLL32 URL.DLL,FileProtocolHandler "MEDIA\MUSIC\Command and Conquer.m3u"