Does anyone know if (the DOS versions of) WC3 and 4 can be run entirely from hard drive, rather than CD?
Yes it's 10 CD's worth altogether (4 for WC3, 6 for WC4), but with modern drives it's still only single percentage points of the size of large FAT32 partition!
My collection database and technical wiki:
https://www.target-earth.net
Ummm, the SHSU CD-ROM archive (see the topic "MS-DOS Tricks and Stuff") allows you to emulate a CD-ROM drive using an ISO, and its documentation says that it allows on-the-fly disc-switching, but I've never tested it.
This is the place to get any and all tech info on the Wing Commander series, here is where the long time players and loyal fans reside and they have very detailed info on running all of the games on modern systems plus patches and fixes for them all...
Wing Commander CIC
Admin
3D Worlds and Game Developers Group Linkedin
http://3dworldandgamedevelopers.blogspot.com/
