Beginners Guide to Running DOS Games/Applications on Windows XP/2000

Use this forum thread to discuss SysOpt's article Beginners Guide to Running DOS Games/Applications on Windows XP/2000 .

Just to let you know Chris, there's some problems with all of the hyperlinks in the articles, you seem to have added

"http://www.sysopt.com/articles/runningoldgames..."

To the front of all hyperlinks, making them not work properly.

Also, for anyone interested in the "Turbo" application im having problems with my file hosting at the moment, currently the following links are working:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.wood3/turbo.zip

http://carlwood.spymac.net/turbo.zip

Both are limited to one connection at a time though AFAIK :(


--Jakk:t

Links are fixed, thanks!!

Windows XP Game Advisor

Put more fun in your life with the all new Windows XP Game Advisor. Find game information including demos, trailers, screenshots and updates and determine if a game will work on your Windows XP powered computer before you buy!

its not working , it says some hardware were unable to bbe identified

I have often run into this problem of having games that will only run in DOS and I am not that knowledgeable about how to do this... you know click the Exe. and ge the dos window all blacked out...
Guess this article has the keys to do this.... Just hope i can siff through the info and put it into pratical application....

Also, I wonder if this is the main reason why some Windows 98 games will not work on XP. Something to do the file structure in the OS...

If you are reading this Jak, I wonder if you would be willing to help me with this if I have problems?;)

Your basically right. Windows 9x was essentially built over the top of DOS. However, this meant that the OS was essentially extremely old and extrememly unstable. With XP/2k (sometimes labelled 'NT5') these stability issues were ironed out, however to do this involved leaving the DOS based file system and developing something 'new and improved', a kind of sawn off dos was included, however XP/2K lack the real thing, hence the problems with backwards compatibility issues with DOS applications

--Jakk:t

One of the issues is that DOS games want to write directly to hardware and NT based OS's don't support this, but rather support writing to the HAL (hardware abstraction layer) which is one reason they are so much more stable.

Here is a page to get the old Build engine games to work on Windows XP. I was able to play Blood perfectly with sound and music, no problems at all.

http://www.deathmask.net/buildxp/

Ah, the build engine, those were the days :D

--Jakk:t

I'm running windows xp pro and trying to play legend of kyrandia 3....i can't get past the video test to play the game. how do i fix this???

I usaully get something to the effect of this game will not run in system 32 etc tc....

According to my expert friend... all you need to do is bring up the dos prompt in Accessories..and type in the run exe. command... from there.

I think everybody has games they used to play on W98 or older that do not run on XP... some do..for whatever reasons.. One gamwe I just reinstallled is American McGees Alice.. it loaded and runs fine and its an older game.

well.. the best way to play DOS games is DosBOX: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/
it's the best DOS emulator and runs almost any game, with sound, except some 3D ones (like Duke Nukem 3D that runs too slow, it's playable but you need a really fast CPU to play at full detail, my 3.0 GHz intel is not enough) try DosBOX and you won't be disappointed. Happy Gaming!!!

... although the best way to play DOS games remains an old pc: p1 100-166 MHz, 16-32 MB RAM, 2-8 MB video and a Yamaha PCI or ISA soundcard (or a SB 16/Awe32 if you can find one of these) :D

You can just open the command prompt by going to Start > All Programs > Accesories > command prompt and type in the Drive letter : corresponding to the Drive that you put the DOS game in (D:, E: etc..) and type run or it might tell you what to type in the instructions that came with the game or it might say on the CD itself.

hey,
can you tellme how can i play dave(a old game if you remember) in my windows 2000pc.
____________________-

Hi,
I got some games which require CD to run and they are working fine on XP.
But at the same time when I try to run them on Win 7 they dont work.
What could be the problem behind it?

Browse the cd, R-click the start and select properties
Select compatabiliy tab
Select XP SP3 in the dropdown.
Save/OK out
Should run fine.

Thanks all for the information - really help me :)

Thank you for sharing complet guide.

I like play games and want to recorder it ,but I tried like 5 different softwares but I had many issues such as the game is recorded in the corner of the video, the video is so blurry, and constant skipping on the playback of the video because the software cant record fast enough to keep up with the game. SO whats a good software that I can use to record my game without all those laggy **** recording problems?

Was looking for old articles on running DOS games in XP. Planning to build my retro machine this summer once I can get out of my home lol