DOSBox related posts should be made in the DOSBox forum. Also, remember that while Windows 9x can be installed in DOSBox, it is not officially supported.

I'm sorry, is there any way for me to move it there?

W95Hero wrote:

I can't 100% say whether Method 1 would work or not

You'll notice method 1 is labelled as "untested". The author is, shall we say, engaging in fantastical whimsy, to put it nicely.

Method 2 is the one where, apart from the fact that the CD drive doesn't show up in Win95, everything seemed to have worked. Basically it gives you a modified SDL.dll as well as a DosBox.exe (I don't know if the link mentioned on the guide is familiar for veterans here, perhaps it is) and then, after having added 2 additional values in the dosbox.conf, let's you use an additional parameter "ide" for IMGMOUNT. Don't ask me how exactly this works (as a matter of fact, if I knew, I could probably help myself much rather than having to inquire here, I can say as much as if you try the thing with the original dosbox, the image will fail to load).

The thing up for download there likely includes a (relatively) well-known unofficial patch for DOSBox, often known as DOSBox-X. The comment suggests that it is ykhwong's build from http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ . (Why he thinks it is necessary to host it on DepostFiles, I cannot say.)

As for why it specifically isn't working, I'm not sure. Did you create a bin/cue image? Does it work when you imgmount it normally in DOSBox without "-ide" ?

In any case, running Windows 95 in DOSBox is not a terribly good idea and depending on your needs there are probably much better ways to run your "lovely old games" on your existing hardware. Which ones are you trying to run?

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I've now tried it with ISO as well as BIN/CUE and also with and without "-ide", which all result in the same thing. DosBox loads it supposingly properly (says MSCDEX is installed. and Drive D is mounted as <path>), yet, it never shows up, and when trying to start the game, it obviously complains that the CD cannot be found. I'm pretty clueless why, must be a detail I'm overlooking. As for which games, there are quite many. Currently, I'm trying to run SuperSpy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUIjtTpVbtI in case it interests you). But I also have a lot of other games lying around, which I, if I got one to work, would attempt running, a few of these are Future Cop, various TKKGs (probably unknown to anyone not German) and such. I'm not really sure what else I could try (perhaps with other exes?), but maybe somebody has a clue. Thanks in advance either way!

W95Hero wrote:

I've now tried it with ISO as well as BIN/CUE and also with and without "-ide", which all result in the same thing. DosBox loads it supposingly properly (says MSCDEX is installed. and Drive D is mounted as <path>), yet, it never shows up, and when trying to start the game, it obviously complains that the CD cannot be found.

Never mind about running the game for now, and forget about Windows for a moment. Can you switch to drive D and get a list of the files on the CD with "dir" after mounting it with imgmount?

W95Hero wrote:

Currently, I'm trying to run SuperSpy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUIjtTpVbtI in case it interests you).

And does this not run in Windows 7 (or XP or whatever it is you're running) ?

Switching to drive D and listing the files with dir works absolutely fine, it shows all files that are on the CD, just as if I would navigate to it through Windows 7. That's why I find it so weird, if at least DosBox would complain about something and put out an error message, there'd be obvious that something is malfunctioned, but it does give the feeling that everything is in shape. Perhaps I should try it with a different CD?

Sadly not, I think the setup (and the game as well, I guess) is 16 bit, refusing to run under Windows 7 64 bit, no matter the compatibility settings. To me this would seem fairly simple, the instructions of method 2 were really easy to handle and quick to execute, if only the CD drive would show up, it would all be good, even if, perhaps, as running it in a DosBox, there'd be performance issues, but as long as it would be playable I wouldn't mind.

Oh and as you've said Dosboxing W95 is not a good idea, if you have any methods how to run old Windows games that are free and won't take years to set up, I'll gladly forget about trying to get this to work and use your methods instead, as I'm not very sure whether I will get everything to work such as sounds in W95, which is pretty essential. Thanks for your help again.

Have you tried downloading the latest ykhwong build from the link I posted earlier?

Also, to be clear, what exactly are you typing before you are starting Windows?

There are many 32-bit programs that use 16-bit installers, but circumventing the problem is fairly straightforward.
http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90280

Otherwise, XP Mode in Windows 7 (Professional or Ultimate) is usually the easiest solution for running old programs. If you must use Windows 95 or 98, generally VMware Player or Virtual PC is the way to go, though neither of them offer 3D acceleration. VMware will also run 3D-accelerated applications in Windows XP.

Thanks for the information.

Things are starting to get interesting now. I use a batchfile where I did as the guide suggested, for me, that is 'dosbox -c "MOUNT C F:\W95" -c "IMGMOUNT D C:\SUPERSPY.ISO -t iso -fs iso -ide 2m" -c "IMGMOUNT A: C:W95.IMG" -c "BOOT W95.img"' F:\W95 is the folder where everything is located.

With the suggested build from ykhwong, mounting works fine, but it refuses to launch the OS, putting out "Missing operating system". At least now there is an error message that can be tackled, although I have no idea why, as the very same image loads properly in the DosBox builds I've used before. In case we can't find out what's wrong here after further investigation I guess I'll try to set up a virtual machine and install Windows 98 on it. If I recall right, somewhere here, I must be having a W98 installer lying around, just have to find it.

W95Hero wrote:

Things are starting to get interesting now. I use a batchfile where I did as the guide suggested, for me, that is 'dosbox -c "MOUNT C F:\W95" -c "IMGMOUNT D C:\SUPERSPY.ISO -t iso -fs iso -ide 2m" -c "IMGMOUNT A: C:W95.IMG" -c "BOOT W95.img"' F:\W95 is the folder where everything is located.

What? I see nothing of the sort in the guide you linked to. In fact, that's all pretty bizarre.

Start DOSBox and type:

1imgmount c f:\w95\w95.img
2imgmount d f:\w95\SUPERSPY.ISO -t iso -fs iso -ide 2m
3boot -l c

Oh well I used a batch file to avoid having to edit it all the time and having it easier to access, I just changed it to what you suggested. So, now, it does start again and everything is back to status quo, meaning it works, no error is shown, the only pity is that there is still no drive D. One difference though is that when Windows starts booting, there is some beep. Interestingly (?), while typing this, I used the new hardware wizard, and despite cancelling everything because I wasn't sure of the path of the resources to allow it to install the new devices (it found quite a bunch), Drive D shows up now. I managed to install the game as well as running it, which I have to thank you for a bunch. Now all thats left is to figure out why the colours are messed up and it doesn't let me switch to 256 color mode as well as sounds, but I'm pretty sure "all" I need to do is install proper video and sounds drivers. However, there's progress, so thanks a lot sir!

Alrighty, sound and video drivers installed, it does work now. Although the sound sometimes stutters (when playing many small sounds a lot more, whereas when just playing one melody it barely does it at all) and the ingame videos didn't work for Superspy (perhaps game specific), I'm still very thankful as I was able to play the game and will now try whether the others work too. Thanks for assisting me!