Installing Dosbox really only means decompressing files to the folder and making the start menu entry. Nothing else is changed on your system.

Hi geniko,

I must concurr, installing DOSBox or running it without running any software won't alter your system in any way. The only thing that might be a result of the problem is that you ran a "dos virus" through DOSBox that rewrote some system files open for grabs, but you didn't mention you ran any program so it can't be that.

As for uninstalling 0.63 before installing 0.65, that isn't nessecarry for as long as you don't install them both to the same directory. I myself have the entire DOSBox collection upon my computer, for testing purposes.

DOSBox is for the moment a pure simulator for DOS exe's, it can't acces the registry and doesn't affect your hardware besides the hardware acces given by the SDL library, witch is in fact only DirectX,OPENGL and the Windows Canvas.

Where did you get the DOSBox 0.63 or the 0.65 version from? If they where from the DOSBox homepage then your safe, if not, then someone might have slipped in a virus of some kind. There are other safe DOSBox flavors out there, called CVS, but thats off topic.

I think I've had that problem once too.

Every time I did something with Internet Explorer, witch is entirely the same application as Windows Explorer or the Windows Desktop, I got a DOS Shell Box. But this was on a system without DOSBox installed to it. Everytime I started Windows, accessed my files or even opened my configurationscreen, I got that black DOS Shell Box and large waiting times.

I must mention that this was on a companies system with a partially rewritten version of XP pro, that I myself accidentally screwed up by well moving shell links; Rewriting Windows, well it doesn't improve it one thing, but thats another story.

As for a cause of this problem, I too am in the mist. My sollution was a bit drastic, but i reinstalled Windows XP.

For the dissapeared driver app you mentioned, you can start any application by doing the following, read the first one first if you don't know the regedit service of Windows :
http://cexx.org/startup.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270035

And don't edit anything in the registry before thinking and looking it up twice, because altering the registry might make it worse if done without knowing what your doing. I once made my system boot and boot and boot and well did I say boot? 😅

If your in the registry at the RUN section mentioned in the sites I gave you, then look for bisarre programs that might be virusses. To check, just copy the filename without the path and paste it into google. You'll get instantly a bunch of sites mentioning if it is a safe app or a virus.

Hope this helps, and that this problem doesn't effect your DOSBox experiance.

As for a helping hand in configuring DOSBox or playing games on it, I would recommend using a frontend like D.O.G. or DBGL.

EDIT-
Oh and the warning from DOSBox after the mount you made is standard built in, to block "dos virusses" or screwy DOS applications from altering your systems files, or deleting them. I would recommend making a subdirectory in your harddrives root, like C:\DOSBox\ and mounting it as "mount C C:\DOSBox". This makes in affect the subdirectory the C:\ inside DOSBox.

Erik.

Both the versions of DOSbox I have are official and all the games/software I have came from http://www.the-underdogs.info/, except for my Princess Maker 2 game which I had been playing awhile but doesn't work great on my laptop just opening the EXE. . .

So, it's more than reasonable to say that the problem lies in Microsoft's or my stupidity. 😵

Thanks for the info; I may just have to grit my teeth and wait a couple weeks so I can buy an external harddrive to dump my programs on so I can reinstall my OS. 😦

I will see if I have any 'trash' apps in my Start folder, though.

Thanks for your help (at least I can play stuff on my DOSbox with out fear).