Run Dos Programs In Winpeshl
admin 21.10.2019
Run DOS programs on Windows with MS-DOS Player. Windows hasn’t been able to run old DOS programs for a very long time. Double-click and you’re simply told 'this app can’t run on your PC'. MS-DOS Player for Win32-x64 is a tiny DOS emulator which enables running simple commands and programs (not full games) with the absolute minimum of hassle.
The classic DOS operating system supported a lot of great applications: word processors, spreadsheets, games, and other programs. Just because an application is old doesn't mean it's no longer useful.There are many reasons to run an old DOS application today. Maybe to extract a report from a legacy business application.
Or to play a classic DOS game. Or just because you are curious about 'classic computing.' You don't need to dual-boot your system to run DOS programs. Instead, you can run them right inside Linux with the help of a PC emulator and.FreeDOS is a complete, free, DOS-compatible operating system that you can use to play classic DOS games, run legacy business software, or develop embedded systems. Any program that works on MS-DOS should also run on FreeDOS.In the 'old days,' you installed DOS as the sole operating system on a computer. These days, it's much easier to install DOS in a virtual machine running under Linux.
(short for Quick EMUlator) is an open source software virtual machine system that can run DOS as a 'guest' operating system Linux. Most popular Linux systems include QEMU by default.Here are four easy steps to run old DOS applications under Linux by using QEMU and FreeDOS.
Step 1: Set up a virtual diskYou'll need a place to install FreeDOS inside QEMU, and for that you'll need a virtual C: drive. In DOS, drives are assigned with letters— A: and B: are the first and second floppy disk drives and C: is the first hard drive. Other media, including other hard drives or CD-ROM drives, are assigned D:, E:, and so on.Under QEMU, virtual drives are image files. To initialize a file that you can use as a virtual C: drive, use the qemu-img command.
To create an image file that's about 200MB, type this: qemu-img create dos.img 200MCompared to modern computing, 200MB may seem small, but in the early 1990s, 200MB was pretty big. That's more than enough to install and run DOS. Step 2: QEMU optionsUnlike PC emulator systems like VMware or VirtualBox, you need to 'build' your virtual system by instructing QEMU to add each component of the virtual machine. Although this may seem laborious, it's really not that hard. Here are the parameters I use to boot FreeDOS inside QEMU:qemu-system-i386QEMU can emulate several different systems, but to boot DOS, we'll need to have an Intel-compatible CPU. For that, start QEMU with the i386 command.-m 16I like to define a virtual machine with 16MB of memory. That may seem small, but DOS doesn't require much memory to do its work.
When DOS was king, computers with 16MB or even 8MB were quite common.-k en-usTechnically, the -k option isn't necessary, because QEMU will set the virtual keyboard to match your actual keyboard (in my case, that's English in the standard U.S. But I like to specify it anyway.-rtc base=localtimeEvery classic PC provides a real time clock (RTC) so the system can keep track of time.
I find it's easiest to simply set the virtual RTC to match your local time.-soundhw sb16,adlib,pcspkIf you need sound, especially for games, I prefer to define QEMU with SoundBlaster16 sound hardware and AdLib Music support. SoundBlaster16 and AdLib were the most common sound hardware in the DOS era.
Some older programs may use the PC speaker for sound; QEMU can also emulate this.-device cirrus-vgaTo use graphics, I like to emulate a simple VGA video card. The Cirrus VGA card was a common graphics card at the time, and QEMU can emulate it.-display gtkFor the virtual display, I set QEMU to use the GTK toolkit, which puts the virtual system in its own window and provides a simple menu to control the virtual machine.-boot order=You can tell QEMU to boot the virtual machine from a variety of sources. To boot from the floppy drive (typically A: on DOS machines) specify order=a. To boot from the first hard drive (usually called C:) use order=c. Or to boot from a CD-ROM drive (often assigned D: by DOS) use order=d. You can combine letters to specify a specific boot preference, such as order=dc to first use the CD-ROM drive, then the hard drive if the CD-ROM drive does not contain bootable media.Step 3: Boot and install FreeDOSNow that QEMU is set up to run a virtual system, we need a version of DOS to install and boot inside that virtual computer. FreeDOS makes this easy.
The latest version is FreeDOS 1.2, released in December 2016.Download the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution from the. The FreeDOS 1.2 CD-ROM 'standard' installer ( FD12CD.iso) will work great for QEMU, so I recommend that version.Installing FreeDOS is simple. First, tell QEMU to use the CD-ROM image and to boot from that. Remember that the C: drive is the first hard drive, so the CD-ROM will show up as the D: drive. Qemu-system-i386 -m 16 -k en-us -rtc base=localtime -soundhw sb16,adlib -device cirrus-vga -display gtk -hda dos.img -cdrom FD12CD.iso -boot order=dJust follow the prompts, and you'll have FreeDOS installed within minutes. After you've finished, exit QEMU by closing the window.
Step 4: Install and run your DOS applicationOnce you have installed FreeDOS, you can run different DOS applications inside QEMU. You can find old DOS programs online through various archives or other.QEMU provides an easy way to access local files on Linux. Let's say you want to share the dosfiles/ folder with QEMU. Simply tell QEMU to use the folder as a virtual FAT drive by using the -drive option. QEMU will access this folder as though it were a hard drive.drive file=fat:rw:dosfiles /Now, start QEMU with your regular options, plus the extra virtual FAT drive: qemu-system-i386 -m 16 -k en-us -rtc base=localtime -soundhw sb16,adlib -device cirrus-vga -display gtk -hda dos.img -drive file=fat:rw:dosfiles / -boot order=cOnce you're booted in FreeDOS, any files you save to the D: drive will be saved to the dosfiles/ folder on Linux.
This makes reading the files directly from Linux easy; however, be careful not to change the dosfiles/ folder from Linux after starting QEMU. QEMU builds a virtual FAT table once, when you start QEMU. If you add or delete files in dosfiles/ after you start QEMU, the emulator may become confused.I use QEMU like this to run my favorite DOS programs, like the As-Easy-As spreadsheet program. This was a popular spreadsheet application from the 1980s and 1990s, which does the same job that Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc fulfill today, or that the more expensive Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet did back in the day.
As-Easy-As and Lotus 1-2-3 both saved data as WKS files, which newer versions of Microsoft Excel cannot read, but which LibreOffice Calc may still support, depending on compatibility. DOSBox is a good system too.
Anno 1701 cheats. But I think of DOSBox as being just for games.DOSBox provides a great platform if you just want to run games. It's not great for doing other work in a DOS environment. On their wiki, DOSBox says 'DOSBox also comes with its own DOS-like command prompt. It is still quite rudimentary and lacks many of the features found in MS-DOS, but it is sufficient for installing and running most DOS games.' With FreeDOS and a PC emulator you can do more than just play games. We've added more features in FreeDOS than what classic 'DOS' provided, while remaining compatible with DOS.
The FreeDOS 'Base' includes those programs and utilities that replace the original MS-DOS behavior. Our other packages include compilers / software development, editors, archivers, music players, text processing, and other things that make FreeDOS more than just 'DOS.' We also have games. I dunno, but maybe its because I'm studying to be a programmer, that I don't see the value of this?
I mean I get the whole 'nostalgia' vibe thing, but in a practical world? This doesn't seem like its worth the effort. Not when there are so many other endeavours one can undertake, such as building a NoSQL database, connecting it to it from a remote/satellite Linux machine, learning programming like C.Python.and Ruby On Rails.etc. I guess there's something for everyone out there in Cyber-verse! Great and informative article though! I got this error and couldn't figure out how to enable GTK support:qemu-system-i386: -display gtk: GTK support is disabledHowever, I just left out the -display gtk option and it worked.BTW, if anyone is thinking of trying this in VirtualBox, you can't add the guest additions (no support pre Win 2000) so you can't scale the window.Not that I have figured out how to make the display resolution bigger anyway.
I can stretch the Window, which is OK for now I guess. Not sure how it will impact games until I get one working. For more discussion on open source and the role of the CIO in the enterprise, join us at.The opinions expressed on this website are those of each author, not of the author's employer or of Red Hat.Opensource.com aspires to publish all content under a but may not be able to do so in all cases.
You are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary permission to reuse any work on this site. Red Hat and the Red Hat logo are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.Copyright ©2019 Red Hat, Inc.
64 bit machines have the inherent capability of running 32 bit programs.32 bit machines have the inherent capability of running 16 bit programs.That does not mean that all programs will run thoughIf it is running from true DOS on your Win 98 that could make life difficult because Win XP onwards did not run on top of DOS (unlike Win 98).It depends on the program but some will run in DOSBox:Sadly with all free downloads these days there is a risk of malware or items pre-checked for you that you don't want or need. I have a safe version of DOSBox 0.74 which is still the latest and could be uploaded somewhere if need be.
I have several DOS programs running in DOSBox on this Win 8.1 64 bit. Setting them up is a bit geeky but not terrible.Let us know the name of the program just in case by some chance it is one we know about.Sometimes there are Windows version of DOS programs.Always pop back and let us know the outcome - thanksmessage edited by Derek.
I downloaded DOSBox 0.74 two years ago, but never installed it,or at least not successfully. Or at least I don't remember doing so.Then sometime in the last few months I asked another question,the answer to which was 'DOSBox', after which I discovered Ialready had it.
But I still didn't install it.The DOS program is a geneology program called 'EZ-Tree'.The friend is actually a relative. I want to send her the data filethat I created with EZ-Tree, but all the relationships betweenpeople are reduced to cryptic numbers without the program tosort them out. There may be programs to convert EZ-Tree datafiles to formats for more modern programs.
I haven't looked intothat and I thought maybe I'd leave that up to my relative, but inthe meantime I wanted her to be able to look at the data.- Jeff, in Minneapolis. The solution Derek pointed out, DOSBox, is the straightforward one to run DOS applications under modern Windows systems since DOSBox offers a built-in DOS emulator. However it is mainly designed to run old games and may fail to execute office or scientific applications.The king road to run DOS programs under Windows 7/8 is to setup a virtual machine, e.g. VirtualBox (free), install a free DOS clone,(FreeDOS) and run your applications.Not a walk in the garden but not an extreme climbing; it depends on how much you need to access those data. Well, it was probably a million to one that I knew that EZ-Tree program and even less likely that I used it.
However the odd question along the same lines appear if you Google:Maybe 'software' instead of 'program' would yield different hits. One thing that was said on a website is that it ran fine on DOSBox but the problem came about when trying to print it. However, once you have it in plain text I would have thought, with a little effort, there might be some way of grabbing the text and inputting it to some Windows program for printing - NotePad maybe.I agree that a virtual machine (Win 98) would be the tops if you care to move in that direction.If you run the program on your W98 then you would have a good chance of using a flash drive to move the printable parts onto a newer computer / operating system.
Print Screen key might have possibilities for instance, pasted to Paint then saved as jpg pictures.Always pop back and let us know the outcome - thanksmessage edited by Derek. The data file is just text and numbers. The numbers obviously codefor the relationships between the different entries, each entry beingeither a person or a marriage between two people. I'm sure I couldreverse engineer the numbers to figure out how they work, but I don'twant to go to that much effort, since the result probably wouldn't beof any use.I could probably re-arrange the data by hand, maybe with the help ofsome lines and arrows, to show the relations.
I won't do that if it isn'treally necessary, though.My old computer's single USB port is the original version of USB, soI don't think it can take a flash drive. But both computers have floppydrives so I'm able to transfer most stuff between them, no problem.- Jeff, in Minneapolis. 'My old computer's single USB port is the original version of USB, soI don't think it can take a flash drive.' If it is truly a USB port, then there shouldn't be any problem with it accepting a flash drive (even if it's USB 1.1).
Support for a flash drive is dependent on the OS having proper drivers, not how old the port is. 'Generic' drivers for Win98 (if this is the OS on the specified machine) can be found here (make sure you get the correct ones for your OS; either Win98 or 98SE):'Channeling the spirit of jboy.' Message edited by T-R-A. The computer was made before USB 1.1 came out. The port is justpllain 'USB'.
Run Dos Programs In Winpeshl Texas
When I was given the computer it had Windows 95 Binstalled, which was the first Windows version to handle USB at all.The one flash drive package I have is for an 8 GB HP flash drive, andit says the requirement is USB 2.0. I've seen requirements in the pastfor USB 1.1 or higher, never for USB 1.0 or higher.I just ran EZ-Tree on my 64-bit computer - from a floppy.
Run Dos Programs In Winpeshl 2017
However,for some reason it didn't recognize the data file. It was able to readthe data file as plain text just fine, but when I tried to tell the programto use it, it said it couldn't find a data file. Hmph!I used one floppy to boot and another for the program and data.That meant using drive A: as a virtual drive B. Maybe it will workif I make the program/data floppy bootable, so that everything ison drive A. Or maybe the data file has to be in a different directoryfrom the program.
Neither seems likely.So close!.I wonder if I can boot to DOS from a USB flash drive.- Jeff, in Minneapolis. @DerekYou can make a bootable floppy or USB flash drive by installing IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM in a suitable way and you have a complete DOS system that can execute on a 64 bit architecture. All DOS is composed by the three mentioned modules, other components are just external optional commands.In Win XP there was NTVDM the built-in emulator that offered some int 21h services, not only the command prompt, i.e. The standard DOS interface to operating system routines. NTVDM was narrowed in Vista and eventually phased out in Win 7 preventing the execution of 16 bit applications that are based on int 21h interface. If you create a pen drive or diskette or CD with bootable DOS you can run it on a modern computer (let me stop here there is more to say, but this is not a system lesson, just a quick note). I found out why the program didn't recognize the data file: There are.two.
required data files. The second one just contains the name ofthe first.So it looks like I'll be bypassing Windows altogether and just bootingDOS from a floppy for my short-term solution.However, I'm surprised to find that there is no way to tell the BIOS ofmy computer to boot from a USB flash drive. Maybe if I just stick abootable flash drive in a port it will boot, but no info I have says so.The motherboard is an ASUS P5Q-E, made circa 2008.- Jeff, in Minneapolis.