For all intents and purposes Win95/98 Dos-mode is true dos. However the version of DOS that it reports is v7.xx, i.e. Win98SE says v7.10. I haven't run into that before but if you have a game that is specifically checking for dos 6.22 it would fail when the version came back as v7.10. The way to get around that would be to use the setver.exe driver to fake it out. Just curious as to what game gave you that info? Normally they just check to see if DOS a >= a specific version.

What I like to do when I start from scratch is to first load Dos 6.22 (or DR Dos, freedos, whatever), configure all of my mouse/sound/cd/emm drivers etc, optimize the memory and once I have everything to my liking in DOS, make copies of my autoexec and config.sys and then start the upgrade to Win98SE. I don't see any advantage to using Win95/Win98 over 98SE. Win98 will comment out some of the stuff in your autoexec/config.sys but it should add the necessay drivers to your exit to dos mode pif.

From there you should be in pretty good shape but Win98 also lets you customize the dos mode for game if you like. If you right click on the exe and select properties you can create a pif for that executable. And if you click on the advanced button on the program tab, once you select MSDos mode it gives you the option of customizing the config.sys and autoexec just for that exe. So you can selectively choose to load the cd driver, mouse driver, emm driver etc depending on what that program needs. Or what I've done in the past is just create some generic pifs that launch command.com. One would be for command prompt with CD, one for command prompt with mouse, etc.

I agree with jthieme.

I don't understand why you tried to install SB-drivers for Win9x. I would assume that Win9x comes with build-in drivers for SB.

I originally had 98 SE installed and you are correct that Windows had the drivers, so sound was working in 98.

I recall, though, that sound was not working when I would shut down into DOS (or if I pressed F8 when booting to start in DOS). This is what prompted for me to try installing the DOS driver. I presumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the 98 drivers only apply to 98 and not DOS.

Please clarify how this "should work". I currently have 2 hard drives - one running 98 SE and one running DOS. Whatever DOS game(s) I was previously having sound problems with were corrected when I ran it in 6.22 after installing the Creative SB driver for DOS.

Again, ideally, I'd like to just have one hard drive running 98, but I suspect that certain older DOS games wouldn't run. Maybe I'm wrong in presuming that too?

Thanks for the prompt responses!

I've never had an SB AWE, but I believe it is similar to my SB16 and I don't load any drivers for dos support. The only thing needed is to set the BLASTER variable in your autoexec.bat and to run the sbconfig utility which configures the board to the settings in the blaster variable. Mine looks like the following:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P300 T6
c:\utility\sb16\sbconfig /s

A=I/O port, I=interrrupt, D=low DMA, H=High DMA P=midi port T=type T6 is for SB16 basic, AWE64 would be different there.

Do you know what IRQ's/etc your AWE is using? A lot of games, especially the older one won't work unless the SB is configured to the defaults. For some games I have to switch the IRQ to 7 which is was the default for the original SB and SB Pro.

The more I think about this, I recall that I wanted this to be as easy as possible, so that's why I wanted to use the SB DOS drivers (because it sets up everything in autoexec.bat and config.sys for you). I didn't feel like re-learning all of those SET BLASTER commands and so forth. But it sounds like I'll have to if I want to only run Win 98 SE.

I'll see what my AWE64 is set to (in DOS 6.22) and make notes of what's in the config.sys and autoexec.bat, then swap hard drives to Win 98 SE and try some of those commands.

I'll also try running sbconfig in Win 98 SE. Is that the DOS version that you're running, or a version for Win 98 SE?

It's the dos version that came with my sounds card. My sb16 did have some config.sys device drivers but I don't use them as they weren't necessary for DOS games and just ate up memory. Let me know what your AWE installs and I can take a look and see if it's needed imo.

On my old rigs I have used Win98SE for a long time and never encountered problems with any DOS-based games.
However, I know about the problem with Creative's SoundBlaster drivers for MS-DOS. They won't install on a Win9x partition, and there is no easy way to make them do so.

The Win9x drivers for the SoundBlaster series already provide most of the stuff you'll need for MS-DOS, but if you want to get all of the DOS applications, there is a "Basic DOS-level utilties for use in Windows95 MS-DOS mode or a Windows 95 Command Prompt only boot." package on the Creative support webpage.
Just select your soundcard (SB16/AWE32/AWE64) and Windows 9x, it shouldn't be difficult to find. The package basically includes the same stuff also found in the original MS-DOS drivers.

For a minimal approach, forget about the drivers and just download CTCM and AWEUTIL (there are separate packages for these).

1. I see that AWEUTIL.COM is extracted as part of the "Basic DOS-level utilties" package (95dosapp.exe).

You can also download "AWEUTIL.COM v1.20. (34.65 KB) 3 Apr 95" which "Solves problems with no music being heard when playing some games that support the SB AWE32."

I guess I'll use the extracted and upgrade to v1.20 if needed, since I have an AWE 64, unless you recommend otherwise.

2. The file "ctcmbbs.exe" is Creative PnP Configuration Manager (Rev 4). Is this the CTCM you mentioned?

3. Once I get these two files on my 98 SE hard drive, should I shut down into DOS then run them? Or is it better to press F8 upon boot and boot to DOS?

4. Also, which file should I run first?

5. Any other tips to make this as straight forward as possible?

6. Oh, I guess I'll also need mouse support for DOS - just download mouse.com and add it to autoexec.bat? I have an old PS2 Microsoft Mouse (Intellimouse I think).

First, when you install the SB Drivers for Win98 that Creative Labs provides, it gives you the option to install the MS-DOS drivers as well. This will place everything you need in the install directory (Usually "C:\Program Files\Creative\CTSND".) While it isn't necessary to install the Windows drivers from Creative to get sound working in Windows, it is necessary if you want to get the SoundFont tools and such installed. It is also necessary if you want to used the Advanced WaveTable that comes with the AWE line of cards.

If you are using the latest (which I think is 1999 or some such, they stopped working on them a while back now,) then setting all the BLASTER parameters in advance is no longer really needed. Just run the CTCM.EXE program in your Autoexec.bat. It loads, configures everything (based on info it pulls from the win.ini file or system.ini file - don't remember exactly,) then unloads. There are a few comands that it might help to run, you can see them in my attached config files.

As for the mouse, I advise downloading a mini driver, several of which are available on the web. Cutemouse is the one that I'm currently using. Just rename it to MOUSE.COM and put it in your path somewhere (C:\WINDOWS is a good choice.) Then you can just load the mouse driver using mouse.com and if you decide to try a different one, you can just copy over the current mouse.com and not have to worry about editing your startup files (Autoexec.bat & Dosstart.bat.)

Finally, my choice has always been to use a menu boot system. I've attached my config.sys & autoexec.bat files as config.txt & autoexec.txt so you can see how that works. You can also see some of the options I set & how I got my AWE card up and running. Alternately, you can just put the extra commands in the DOSSTART.BAT file in your Windows directory, so that when you restart in DOS mode it will run them. If you look at my config.sys file, you will see that I load the low level CD-ROM drivers in my Windows 98 boot even though they are not needed by Windows and are actually waisting a bit of memory. That is so that, when I restart in DOS mode, I can load MSCDEX.EXE to enable the CD-ROM drivers.

If you decide to use a menu system you will need to edit your MSDOS.SYS file to turn off Windows auto-loading. Just type the following commands (without the " marks,) to do this. Be careful that you only change what you are told to chage.
"attrib msdos.sys -s -h -r"
"edit msdos.sys"
Change "BootGUI=1" to "BootGUI=0"
I also advise changing "DoubleBuffer=1" to "DoubleBuffer=0" (more on that later)
<ALT><F><X> and save the file
"attrib msdos.sys +s +h +r"

I turn off DoubleBuffer because it uses up a lot of memory for very little improvement on performance. Some of my DOS games are extremely memory intensive. Also, you can use the menu system with even more options. You could, for example, have the menu items be: Windows, DOS, DOS No CD, & Game, then create a sub-menu for all of your games that require special handling (Ultima 7 & 8 come to mind here.) I've altered my Config.txt file to add that in (as I don't use it.) This doesn't stop you from also creating PIF files that re-boot your computer to play a game as well. It just allows you to skip the entire Windows load process if all you want to do is play a specific game 😀

modul8r wrote:

You can also download "AWEUTIL.COM v1.20. (34.65 KB) 3 Apr 95" which "Solves problems with no music being heard when playing some games that support the SB AWE32."
I guess I'll use the extracted and upgrade to v1.20 if needed, since I have an AWE 64, unless you recommend otherwise.

I don't know the differences between AWEUTIL versions. Mine is v1.36, but don't ask me where that came from 🙄

modul8r wrote:

2. The file "ctcmbbs.exe" is Creative PnP Configuration Manager (Rev 4). Is this the CTCM you mentioned?

Yes, you will need that because the AWE64 is a PnP card, which has to be initialised before it can be used with DOS games. If you drop out to DOS mode from Win9x, the initialisation has already been done by the Windows drivers, but you'll need it when you boot to DOS directly.

modul8r wrote:

3. Once I get these two files on my 98 SE hard drive, should I shut down into DOS then run them? Or is it better to press F8 upon boot and boot to DOS?
4. Also, which file should I run first?
5. Any other tips to make this as straight forward as possible?

Here is a short step-by step HOWTO on installing CTCM and AWEUTIL:

1. Download the files and place them in a directory of your choice. (Let's call it C:\AWE64 for example)

2. Execute both files. These are just self-extracting archives, so you can do this within Win98.

3. Add the following lines to your AUTOEXEC.BAT:

1SET CTCM=C:\WINDOWS
2SET SOUND=C:\AWE64
3C:\AWE64\CTCM.EXE
4C:\AWE64\AWEUTIL.COM /S

(Adjust the paths accordingly if you installed the drivers or Windows somewhere different)

That's it! Of course you can refine your configuration like FeedingDragon did in his example files, but the above three steps should provide SoundBlaster support under DOS.

FeedingDragon wrote:

Just run the CTCM.EXE program in your Autoexec.bat. It loads, configures everything (based on info it pulls from the win.ini file or system.ini file - don't remember exactly,) then unloads.

The settings are stored in a file called CTPNP.CFG. CTCM gets the file location from either CTCM or WINBOOTDIR environment variables.

FeedingDragon wrote:

[…]
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1IF %CONFIG% == WIN Goto WIN
2IF %CONFIG% == DOS Goto DOS
3IF %CONFIG% == NCD Goto NCD
4IF %CONFIG% == UL7 Goto UL7
5IF %CONFIG% == UL8 Goto UL8

These won't be needed on DOS 7.x, it's already done automatically 😉

5u3 wrote:

FeedingDragon wrote:

[…]
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1IF %CONFIG% == WIN Goto WIN
2IF %CONFIG% == DOS Goto DOS
3IF %CONFIG% == NCD Goto NCD
4IF %CONFIG% == UL7 Goto UL7
5IF %CONFIG% == UL8 Goto UL8

These won't be needed on DOS 7.x, it's already done automatically 😉

I've never noticed anything automatic happening 🙁 Of course, I've never given it the chance to do things automatically either. I've been using menu's since DOS 6.2, and I know there was nothing automatic back then. Even if it is, now, it is probably safer just to set it up to do things manually anyways. That way, you won't have to keep remembering, "Is this for DOS 6.2 or DOS 7.1??" You could use the exact same MENU structure with either OS in that case.

Thanks for the information, folks.

Although I initially wanted to go with the simple approach, I decided to go with FeedingDragon's approach, as to learn something from it, plus I wanted to see that menu system first-hand (seems like it would be handy for potentially "pesky" DOS games that require certain memory settings, etc.).

Now, to the point. I'd like more information about the two following autoexec.bat entries. Sure, I could research this myself but I feel it would be more useful to keep this information in this thread for other forum members.

1. SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0

I curently have this REM'd out because I was getting an error message related to a .smb (I think) file being missing. Sound worked in the games I tried though, so I'm curious what its purpose is.

2. %SOUND%\AWEUTIL /S /EM:GM

What does /S do?

What does /EM:GM do?

P.S. I got an error message about OEMCD001 not being found. My best guess at this point is that it's because I'm using a Creative CD-ROM which requires a proprietary driver. I'll try another CD-ROM when I get home, because I'm doubtful that the problem is related to your files or syntax. I wanted to use the Creative though just for the "old school" factor, as it's a "Creative 4x" and I remember how those were cool back in the day. I suppose, if anyone can provide a link to the appropriate driver, I could put that on my system and change references of OAKCDROM.SYS to the Creative driver.

Thanks again! I'm very glad such a community exists.

modul8r wrote:

2. %SOUND%\AWEUTIL /S /EM:GM

What does /S do?

What does /EM:GM do?

/S = set up board but don't remain in memory.
/EM:GM = Emulate MIDI as General MIDI

I have, in some cases, discovered games that will not use the wavetable on the card without having AWEUTIL actually resident in memory. But most of my games seem to work just fine with this configuration (load the General MIDI soundfont file into onboard RAM, set up MIDI emulation, then get out of memory.) It saves conventional memory this way.