HBMS (Home Budget Management System) - Can't Figure It Out \ VOGONS

HBMS (Home Budget Management System) - Can't Figure It Out

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First post, by cingraham

Posted on 2014-03-04, 20:20

cingraham Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: 2014-03-04, 13:51

Scenario:
O/S: Windows 8 Pro-64 Bit.
DOS Program: circa 1984 HBMS (Home Budget Management System)
Executable: HBMS.EXE
1. HBMS program and config files located in “C:\Program Files (x86)\HBMS\”
2. HBMS data files located in “C:\Users\Owner\Documents\HBMS\HBMS14\”
3. HBMS.EXE uses two command line parameters/arguments while launching HBMS.EXE.
3.1 "dC:\Users\Owner\Documents\HBMS\HBMS14\"; the "d" I assume means directory. The remainder is the path of the data files.
3.2 “y14”; I assume means fiscal year 2014.
4. The total path with executable and command line parameters is something along the lines of:
4.1 “C:\Program Files (x86)\HBMS\HBMS.EXE” dC:\Users\Owner\Documents\HBMS\HBMS14\ y14

I don’t know how to build my Dosbox item to mount the drive, declare the c drive, call the program from one directory and add parameters from a different directory, especially using a Windows Shortcut. I’d be OK with a *.bat file that I then create a shortcut with. It’s almost as if the HBMS program needs to be in the same directory as my data files that it uses.

I can get Dosbox to open HBMS. I can even get the year to populate but the directory is claimed to be invalid. I don’t believe I have a DOS short name issue.

Can you help? Thank you.
cingraham@llbean.com

Reply 1 of 1, by Dominus

Posted on 2014-03-04, 21:29

Dominus Offline

Rank DOSBox Moderator

Rank: DOSBox Moderator
Posts: 9205
Joined: 2002-10-03, 09:54
Location: Ludwigsburg

First of all DOSBox is only for games -> DOSBox IS NOT SUITED TO RUN YOUR NON-GAMING DOS APPLICATION

But this might work and that's as far asI'm willing to think about it 😀
in Dosbox run this:

1mount c C:\Program Files (x86)\HBMS\
2mount d C:\Users\Owner\Documents\HBMS\
3c:
4hbms.exe dd:\HBMS14 y14

Explanation: DOSBox needs to mount directories as drives to be able to use programs or files. The above first mount makes DOSBox see C:\Program Files (x86)\HBMS\ as its c:\ drive. Since the data is somewhere completely different we need to mount C:\Users\Owner\Documents\HBMS as the d: drive. Now hbms.exe is at the "virtual2 c:\ drive root and the HBMS data structure is in the d:\ drive. Got it? 😀
If that works, and I think it should, then you can just enter the above commands in the autoexec section of DOSBox' config file (at the end of the config file)

BUT again, remember it's not meant for anything but games and if this is about mission critical company stuff, better use a VM or a dedicated computer for this.

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