severt wrote:

this doesn't work.
Is there anything I can do?

That is very difficult to say unless you provide more details about what specifically "doesn't work".

If you want a program to start automatically when you launch DOSBox, then you either need to use the "-c" parameter in whatever shortcut you are using to launch DOSBox, or edit the [autoexec] section of DOSBox.conf.

If this DOS program is specifically designed to interact with Windows somehow, then it's not really a DOS program and DOSBox will not help you.

In any case, the use of DOSBox for non-gaming applications is discouraged.

The Windows application needs to get data from that DOS application.
But I believe this is not going to work since the DOS application run in it's own environment (virtual).

I think you answered your own question.
DosBox is not recommended for anything other than games, in any case, if you have the source for your app. Why not compile it as a 32 bit Windows executable.

severt wrote:

But I believe this is not going to work

If the Windows application is somehow directly accessing the memory of the open DOS application, then that would be an exceptionally strange thing for a Windows application to do. If it is merely accessing a file that the DOS application creates on the hard drive then that is probably quite trivial to work around.

Unless you provide more details about what is actually happening (and not what you "believe") it will be very difficult to help you.