It is about your real C drive, not the emulated one.

'mount c c:\doswin'
is safe, emulated software has no access to your real Windows files. Only

'mount c c:\'

can be problematic.
In the latter case, win3.1 might try to replace your winXP or whatever.

I'll think of a way to word that better 😀
What h-a-l says is what I meant in the guide.
I'm planning to add screenshots to the guide and the graphics driver as a direct download but I'm still waiting for snover's reply on that (or for anybody's that offered to host the files).

Okay.

Just to make sure that I understand this: mounting a directory under C:\ is okay, but mounting C:\ itself is not. Correct?

Thanks again for posting the guide, Dominus.

Yes, this is correct (of course I also wouldn't recommend mounting C:\Windows, C:\program files, c:\Documents and Settings, I think you get what I mean 😀)

Great. Thanks a lot for the help. I'll try installing now.

I've run into a slight problem installing Windows 3.11 -- when I load the DOSbox 0.63 CVS build and type in the lines from the guide that I mentioned in my first post in this thread, when I type 'setup.exe', I always receive this response:

"Directory s:\ doesn't exist. Illegal command: setup.exe."

Entering the lines in dosbox.conf beforehand produces a similar reaction. I actually ran into this same problem when I was trying to install what I thought was a copy of Windows 3.11 some time earlier. The only solution to this problem I could find was dragging setup.exe into a DOSbox shortcut, whereupon I discovered that I didn't have the installation disks for 3.11, I just had the installation disks for a 3.11 upgrade.

I just wanted to make sure that dragging setup.exe into DOSbox (making sure to enter "mount c c:\doswin cd c:\win31" in dosbox.conf first) is safe to do, since I don't want to accidentally mount my C:\ drive and muck up Windows XP.

Dragging a file onto the dosbox icon simply does this:
(for c:\folder1\folder2\file.exe)
mount C C:\Folder1\Folder2\...
C:
File.exe

Beware that some CVS builds (ykhwong's?) however automatically mount C:\ as C:\ at startup, even if you drag a file to the icon.

If you're geting an error when using the manual mounting method, you must be doing something wrong...

Hmm...I tried using the CVS-Compile build instead of the one I was currently using (ykhwong's, as it turned out), and I didn't get the "Directory s:\ doesn't exist" line after entering "setup.exe", but I'm still getting the "Illegal command: setup.exe" line.

I don't know what I could be doing wrong. I've followed Dominus's directions exactly, yet I keep getting the same error.

Would editing the autoexec section of this build's dosbox.conf file to say "mount c c:\doswin" prevent it from mounting C:\ (if it is one of those builds that automatically does that if a file is dragged onto it)?

Aah, I see what's happening - the autoexec section of mine has "C:" in it, and these builds automatically mount a drive when you try to switch to it, if it's not already mounted. So as long as that's not there, it will work as per 0.63 (i.e. you will be able to drag exe files to it and it will run them). Still not sure why you're having problems though.

Okay...just to make sure I understand everything:

Dragging setup.exe into a DOSbox shortcut after editing the dosbox.config's autoexec settings to say:

mount c c:\doswin
cd c:\win31

is the same thing as typing:

mount c c:\doswin
cd c:\win31
setup.exe

into DOSbox? I just want to make certain that I'm not doing anything that might mess up my OS.

No, you shouldn't need to bother with the autoexec section. Just make sure it's empty - the one that comes with ykhwong's build tries to switch to C: before it's been mounted, which forces an automount. Dragging an exe file does all the mounting and running for you. You should be able to see exactly what happens if you look at the messages in the dosbox window. Just make sure C:\ doesn't get mounted as C:\

Btw, you can use the DOS command "DIR" to list the files in a directory, if you're not sure what got mounted as what.

I haven't looked at the guide, but I'd avoid the dragging method and use these commands instead:

mount c: c:\doswin
mount d: c:\doswin\win31
d:
setup.exe

(you can put these in your autoexec section if you want, or just do it manually)

That way d: is your installer drive, and c: is the drive for it to install to (but it's really installing to c:\doswin of course)
You can use "C:" then "DIR" and "D:" then "DIR" to check it's the right directories that were mounted.

So as long as that's not there, it will work as per 0.63

Don't use 0.63 but use a CVS built.

I suspect something is wrong with your Windows installation files, or it wouldn't give that error message.

Entering those lines seemed to work -- I finally managed to start the setup program via DOSbox. I'll try installing now...

woot woot 😀

Success! I've managed to install Windows 3.11 without losing Windows XP in the process.

There are a few things that aren't perfect (the only sound I have is pretty choppy, the first game I tried to run said that it could only run in 256 colors, and when I tried to adjust the graphics settings, I screwed up the entire display, forcing me to reinstall everything), but I'm sure that I can expect nothing but improvements from DOSbox, given a little patience.

Thank you very much for your help, everyone.

ehhhh....

DosBox + Games = DosBox Goal
DosBox + Windows 3.x = DosBox sideproject way down on list to worry about.

Akril15 wrote:

mount c c:\doswin
cd c:\win31
setup.exe

In case you want to know what went wrong, here's the error in these commands:

"cd c:\win3.1" will change the current directory of drive C to \win3.1, but it does not change the current drive, so after that command, you are not inside c:\win3.1, instead you are where you were before - a lone "c:" as command will switch the current drive, after that you are in c:\win3.1.