ripa wrote:

I can think of a way that it might be possible to configure Windows to launch DOSBox by double-clicking on a .conf file, but it would definitely be nonstandard and I don't think anyone here has mentioned doing it before.

I used to have that. On Windows XP, Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types tab -> find the entry for CONF file type -> Advanced -> edit the 'open' action -> set 'application used to perform action' path to dosbox.exe and add -conf "%1" to it. Alternatively you can add a context menu entry 'launch in dosbox' instead of the default double-click 'open' action.

Yes, that's what I was thinking of. (Did that actually work as expected?)

This had occurred to me too, but I would think it would behave more like dropping a file on dosbox.exe. In other words it would mount the folder that the conf file is in and try to start the conf file within DOSBox resulting an Illegal command message.

That's exactly what would happen - but adding -conf "%1" makes all the difference, at least in theory.

It works just fine. Here's a version with context menu entry instead of double-click (I prefer doubleclick to open the file in an editor).

quakeshareware.conf:

1[autoexec]
2# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
3# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
4echo quake shareware

This can be done on later Windows versions but the file type association menus have changed so I don't remember how exactly.

OK, I somehow missed the -conf in the entry and only saw the "%1", without which it would just try to open the file in the associated program. In any case I would assign it a different verb than open so I can still open a conf file for editing with just a double click.