I looked around the forums a bit and couldn't find any topics explaining how to get (some) old DOS games running under XP without DosBox. Granted, I didn't look very hard and might be repeating what others have already said, but hey - at least its a non-spam way to get my post count up :D

So here's what you can do to setup your game for running under xp:

1. install/unzip the game into a folder
2. right-click on the exe file (there may be several in the folder, im talking about the exe file which starts the game) and click Properties
3. from the window that pops up, go to the Program tab
4. Here, deselect "Close on exit" - this is for some games which open a black window that dissapears after half a second and nothing else happens. With this setting off, the window stays open and contains a message telling you what exactly went wrong that prevented the game from running properly: not enough memory, couldnt find a file, etc.
5. Click "Advanced", and in the window that pops up, enable "Compatible Timer Hardware Emulation"
6. Close this window and move to the Memory tab
7. enable "Protected" mode and "Uses HMA" mode.
8. For all memory settings (conventional, expanded, extended, DPMI) choose the maximum value setting
9. Apply your changes and close the window
10. Try running the game

One thing you definitely shouldn't try is Compatibiliy Mode! :not_ok:


The above steps work mostly for games that would run directly under Win9x systems. Really old games (with 4-8 colours and a filesize under 20kb) will probably need DosBox :whistle:

To the compatibility mode -
It's a last resort, and in certain cases it does work.
It tries to naturalize resources to a certain platform, and to some extent it does work.
I got Blood and System Shock 2 to work that way.

On my system they both work using the steps I wrote out :)

Well, I saved myself all the trouble by just going into compatibility mode, :bleh: .
I tried this out with a game and it worked, so I'll use it if I encounter any problem.s.

nice one nikson! running games your way means an extra belt of speed.

DosBox or VDMSound, nothing else. Some very - I mean VERY - old games will run perfectly in pure XP, though (Mechwar springs to mind)

I can't seem to get TD2192 to work when I do this. Know what else I can try?

yes, DoxBox :P

How do I do DosBox? Isn't that the thing that comes up when you try to run it? (I'm not too good with computers). If it is that, it doesn't work.

"The thing that comes up" is DOS, not DOSBox.

Download dosbox here, pick Windows if you're unsure.