SHARE.EXE will only work if you boot real DOS in DOSBox, it does not work in the internal emulation of DOS.

In the Win3.x guide in the guides section of the forum you can find FAKESHAR.COM which may satisfy the application's check for SHARE.EXE, but as its name implies it does not actually provide any file sharing abilities.

Applying the Version 5.01 patch may also help with other issues:
https://web.archive.org/web/19971011071612/ht … e.com/patch.htm

ripsaw8080 wrote on 2022-10-30, 21:32:

SHARE.EXE will only work if you boot real DOS in DOSBox, it does not work in the internal emulation of DOS. In the Win3.x guide in the guides section of the forum you can find FAKESHAR.COM which may satisfy the application's check for SHARE.EXE, but as its name implies it does not actually provide any file sharing abilities.

Thanks for the info. I had missed that Win3.x guide here in the forums. I've been running W311WFWG under DOSBox for eons now, and up until now didn't need any of the info in that thread 🤣.

Anyhow, even though booting from a hard disk image is a viable option (as mentioned in the Win3.x guide), that sounds like a real PITA compared to how I've been running W3 under DOSBox for all these years.

I did try the FAKESHAR.COM utility though, It SEEMED to work perfectly 😀 That being said, I noticed a warning in the guide about file corruption. I know this is a vague question, but do you think that it would cause any problems with ATC Workshop?

ATC Workshop uses several database files, FSFSDB.MDB and FSFSLOCK.MDA (I'm assuming), do you think that FAKESHAR.COM would cause any problems with them? I mean, ATC Workshop seemed to open them just fine, and I was even able to successfully create and compile an ADV adventure file. I DID notice that the file dates and times were changed on those files after exiting W311WFWG/DOSBox, so I'm assuming that ATC Workshop is writing to them.

One thing that I hadn't tried yet though, I'll have to give that a test as well: ATC Workshop comes with a database import utility to import new airports and navigation aids data into the database... that would also be written to the FSFSDB.MDB and FSFSLOCK.MDA files I'm sure.

akula65 wrote on 2022-10-30, 22:37:

Applying the Version 5.01 patch may also help with other issues: https://web.archive.org/web/19971011071612/ht … e.com/patch.htm

Thanks for the info, but I have two copies of Flight Shop, one for Flight Simulator 5, and the other for Flight Simulator 95. The later CD comes with the same updated EXE (FSFSADV.EXE) as the one that is in the update on that archived web page.

While DOSBox does not support SHARE (unless you boot real DOS), the DOSBox-X fork does have SHARE support integrated.

rfnagel wrote on 2022-10-31, 07:42:

One thing that I hadn't tried yet though, I'll have to give that a test as well: ATC Workshop comes with a database import utility to import new airports and navigation aids data into the database... that would also be written to the FSFSDB.MDB and FSFSLOCK.MDA files I'm sure.

I've done a bit for quick testing, and it seems that the database import utility is working correctly. I imported several airport/runway/navaids text files, exited the import utility and started ATC Workshop, and so far everything looks good with the databases. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm thinking that with simply using FAKESHAR.COM, the ATC Workshop databases are remaining uncorrupt 😀

rfnagel wrote on 2022-10-31, 07:42:

I noticed a warning in the guide about file corruption. I know this is a vague question, but do you think that it would cause any problems with ATC Workshop?

It will probably work without problems in situations where there is only single-user access to files. File corruption can occur in multi-user situations because the guards to prevent it are absent.

It's easy to imagine situations where multi-user access occurs on shared network folders, but keep in mind that it can also happen with multiple instances of DOSBox on one system, or even multiple applications open simultaneously in Win3.x running in DOSBox. While Win3.x is mostly just task-switching, multi-process access of files can still happen, which is why some Win3 apps want support for file sharing.

ripsaw8080 wrote on 2022-10-31, 13:07:

It will probably work without problems in situations where there is only single-user access to files. File corruption can occur in multi-user situations because the guards to prevent it are absent.

It's easy to imagine situations where multi-user access occurs on shared network folders, but keep in mind that it can also happen with multiple instances of DOSBox on one system, or even multiple applications open simultaneously in Win3.x running in DOSBox. While Win3.x is mostly just task-switching, multi-process access of files can still happen, which is why some Win3 apps want support for file sharing.

Many thanks for the info, Ripsaw! 😀 I have a hunch that I'm good to go then, as I will only be running the ATC Workshop once to generate an ADV adventure file, and then will be exiting the utility, and then exiting Windows 3 and DOSBox. On occasion I might use the database import utility, but I won't be running anything else (such as ATC Workshop) when doing that. Thanks again for the info 😀