Leave the noconsole switch to get some insight.
Btw if you'd just named the conf file dosbox.conf you could have had success.

I am afraid I don't know what you mean by "leave" the switch?

I run other programs with DosBox so I would like to have conf files for each. The manual says you can do that and I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Thanks.

Check the console output. It tells which config file is used.

Removed -noconsole from the target statement and opened the icon.

The console says:
CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file C:\Users\Michael\AppData\Local\DOSBox\dosbox-0.74.conf
Memory sizes above 31 MB are NOT recommended.
Stick with the default values unless you are absolutely certain.
MIDI:Opened device:win32

This is strange because when I look at C:\Users\Michael\, I see ten different folders, but none of the are named AppData or anything similar. Also appears to be no reference to the -conf switch that I am including in the command line, even though adding and removing the -noconsole switch certainly seems to have an effect.

MS has cleverly hidden the Local APPDATA folder. you can get there by executing "shell:Local AppData". To get to the config file you can just use the "edit config" link (or similar) in the dosbox startmenu folder.

Also use the -userconf switch instead of the -conf switch if you want to skip the default config file alltogether.

your dektop icon link might be done wrong too, btw.

I am afraid I don't understand executing "shell:Local AppData", but even if I could get to the folder being used by DosBox, my problem is that it is using some .conf file in that folder when I am specifying that it use a custom .conf as explained in the manual.

According to the manual, -userconf cannot be used with a configfilelocation like -conf can. In any case, I tried adding -userconf so that the target line is now

C:\DOSGames\DOSBox.exe -userconf -conf C:\DOSGames\df.conf

The outcome was the same, the specified .conf file was ignored, as was the console text.

I agree that my desktop link is done wrong, given that it isn't properly invoking the custom .conf file. I posted because I know its wrong, but I don't know how to fix it.

First of all that folder exists and IS being used by Dosbox. You execute that command in the search/run field of the start menu. But again you don't need to since the config file in there can already be edit by the dosbox start menu folder.
Anyway, try running the whole line on the command prompt (in the search/run field of the start menu run cmd.exe). Maybe that is more revealing. And I hope you didn't use all those spaces when you run it.