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Nice installer menu for DOS games

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First post, by gaffa2002

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Hi everybody.

A long time back (around 1996), I remember getting a CD with a lot of shareware MS-DOS games, this CD had a nice menu in which you selected the game and it would be automatically installed to a pre-defined directory (the default was C:\GAMES).
For some reason, I always though that menu to be very cool and wanted to make something similar to store and install my MS-DOS games just by selecting them from a list.
So I created this little menu, which can be customized with different title and desired game list. In order to use it you just need to:
1- Place your zipped game/program files into ZIPFILES directory (i.e DOOM2.ZIP, WOLF3D.zip, etc...)

2- Edit the APPLIST.CFG file and fill it with the list of games using the following pattern:
*Even Lines (starting from line 0): ZIP file name without the extension (i.e DOOM2)
*Odd Lines: Game full name that will be listed in the menu (i.e DOOM II: Hell on Earth)
A sample CFG file would be:
DOOM2
DOOM II: Hell on Earth
MK
Mortal Kombat
BMENACE
Bio Menace

3- Edit the STRINGS.CFG file and set the menu title, texts, default directory, etc...

4- Once all is set, copy the contents into desired place (i.e burn it to a CD)

5- The end-user needs to execute INSTALL program in order to access the menu

I`m sharing in case anyone has any interest in trying it. Please note I don't have access to any retro computer right now so it was fully tested using DOSBox 0.74.

Any bugs or issues please let me know. Also note that this was meant to be used in old computers using DOS or Dosbox.

Edit: Added a little script to automatically generate the zip files. You just need add the uncompressed apps\games into INPUT directory separated by sub folders (i.e INPUT\APP1, INPUT\APP2, etc) and run the createZipFiles.bat file. It will zip each folder in INPUT directory to a separate file having the folder name (i.e OUTPUT\APP1.ZIP, OUTPUT\APP2.ZIP). Note that this script is meant to run on windows.

Attachments

  • Filename
    ZIPTool.zip
    File size
    631.29 KiB
    Downloads
    69 downloads
    File comment
    Tool to generate many zip files at once
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    DOS_MENU.zip
    File size
    134.86 KiB
    Downloads
    146 downloads
    File comment
    Menu v1.1
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Dosmenu1_1.jpg
    Filename
    Dosmenu1_1.jpg
    File size
    89.08 KiB
    Views
    1464 views
    File comment
    Menu Screenshot
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by gaffa2002 on 2019-11-18, 18:51. Edited 9 times in total.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 1 of 11, by keropi

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Wow this looks very nice thanks for sharing!
I also always had a weird fascination about configurable DOS installers - glad to see I am not the only one 🤣

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 2 of 11, by dreamblaster

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Looks great, I will try it !

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS SE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-SE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 3 of 11, by gaffa2002

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Thanks for trying it out 😀
Btw, while trying to do a installer for Theme Hospital, I just found out that simply extracting the contents to a folder will not work (the game will ask for CD if you do that). To solve this, the user needs to manually edit the HOSPITAL.CFG file and set it with the game current game path, which is not that cool for an automated installer.
So to cover this and any other games that might require changes after installation, in the next version I'm adding a feature for running post-installation scripts for each game that needs it. Basically there will be a new folder called SCRIPTS which may have a batch file with the game name (HOSPITAL.BAT), the batch file will be executed after file extraction finishes, if the game has one.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 4 of 11, by dreamblaster

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Very nice !

installer_screenshot1.png
Filename
installer_screenshot1.png
File size
5.38 KiB
Views
1521 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Post installation scripts will be a great addition !
Another feature idea : subfolder or category support ?
For example I could make a category UTILITIES, for the soundcard utils
and GAMES for games,...
And each category has its own default install directory ? (now it is always c:\games)

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS SE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-SE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 5 of 11, by gaffa2002

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Hey dreamblaster, thanks for trying it out and for the suggestions.
I plan to add a way to customize the texts for labels and buttons (as there are not many) and the default directory. As you intend to use it for non-gaming applications, it will look better if you could customize some of the labels as well (instead of "Select game to be installed", something like "Select item to be installed").
Will do that together with the post installation script thing once I get some time. That will allow menus for different applications and translation to other languages.
As for the category/subfolder feature, I have an idea for allowing it to be set in the GAMELIST.CFG file, something like:

DOOM2 ACTION
DOOM II: Hell on Earth
HOSPITAL
Theme Hospital
OPL2LPT AUDIO\UTILITY
OPL2LPT Utilities

This way, DOOM2 would be installed to C:\GAMES\ACTION\DOOM2, Theme Hospital would be installed to C:\GAMES\HOSPITAL and OPL2LPT would be installed to C:\GAMES\AUDIO\UTILITY\OPL2LPT. Note that the installation directory displayed in menu will not change with the game and will always show the base directory, meaning sub folder creation will be transparent to the user (although the confirmation message box displayed before installation will show the full path including sub folders).

Hopefully, all of this will be available in the next version as the changes are quite small to make.

Another tip, you can add "subcategories" to the list in GAMELIST.CFG by doing the following (this is already working in current version, you can give it a try if you want):

NONE
===Games===
DOOM2
DOOM II: Hell on Earth
HOSPITAL
Theme Hospital
NONE
===Utilities===
OPL2LPT
OPL2LPT Utilities

When the program sees the selected item is "NONE", it will not allow the user to install it (if you attempt to install it, it will show a message asking the user to select an item, as if nothing was selected). Such unintended "feature" may be handy for you.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 6 of 11, by gaffa2002

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Sorry for the double post. Just uploaded newest version on the first post (v1.1):

Functionalities added in V1.1
-----------------------------------
Post installation script support:
-----------------------------------
You can add .BAT files that will run after extraction of the game zip file. The BAT file will receive the installation path as parameter and must be stored into SCRIPTS directory. The script must have the same name as the zip file (i.e DOOM.BAT).

-----------------------------------
Customizable text:
-----------------------------------
You can customize all strings used by the menu by editting the STRINGS.CFG file. You can also change the default installation path from there as well.

-----------------------------------
Support for dummy entries in menu
-----------------------------------
You can add "dummy" menu entries by adding DUMMY_ENTRY instead of the zip file name. Such entries are useful for splitting the list into categories (i.e Games, Apps, etc) Dummy items will always be skipped and cannot be selected.
Consult the README.TXT file under CFG directory for more information.

-----------------------------------
Sub-directories Support:
-----------------------------------
You can define subdirectories in which the items will be installed. Please consult README.TXT file under CFG directory for more information.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 7 of 11, by dreamblaster

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Nice !

installer_screenshot2.png
Filename
installer_screenshot2.png
File size
5.28 KiB
Views
1409 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS SE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-SE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 8 of 11, by gaffa2002

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Another update on first post: Added a little tool to generate multiple ZIP files from multiple directories. You just need to copy your uncompressed apps or games directories into INPUT folder and run the script.
Each folder will generate a corresponding ZIP file into OUTPUT directory. The resulting zip files can be moved to ZIPFILES directory to be used by the installer.

Last edited by gaffa2002 on 2019-11-18, 19:32. Edited 1 time in total.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 9 of 11, by keropi

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thanks for sharing! this is getting better and better!

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 10 of 11, by biohazardx9

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Now thats a useful menu, I like that.
I wonder if you could add the beep sounds (like when you install doom or quake), the ability to toggle them on/off? Just a thought.

I'll definitely give this a go

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