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[CorruptMylar]

Okay, what is the best frontend for DOSBox for WinXP.

Please and Thank you.

[dosraider]

IMO the best frontend is no frontend.
Learn to work with dosbox, it's not that hard to learn anyway.
A beginner's guide to DOSBox

This is a personal opinion, of course.
Take it or leave it.

[_r.u.s.s.]

Originally Posted by CorruptMylar

Okay, what is the best frontend for DOSBox for WinXP.

Please and Thank you.

your brain

seriously, dosraider is right

[Kloudstriker]

Originally Posted by CorruptMylar

Okay, what is the best frontend for DOSBox for WinXP.

Please and Thank you.

But if you want a front end, then I would recommend D-Fend Reloaded. It installs Dosbox and runs it automatically when you run a game. It's also highly customizable.

[Eagle of Fire]

I agree with DOSraider. We do not know of frontends which are 100% compatible with all possible games. They all have trouble with some game one way or another.

[CorruptMylar]

I did try D-Fend Reloaded and it seems pretty good. But like you say EOF, when I tried to customize HOMM with the mount -t cd-rom option, I couldn't seem to get the .conf file changes to stick. I'm sure there is a way, but the point of a Frontend in my mind is NOT to fiddle with stuff. Thanks for the replies. I'll probably play with D-fend some more.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Frontend? FRONTEND? You don't need any frontends!
Read the DOSBox readme.
Notice that:
1. In a shortcut to the DOSBox executable, you can disable the status console and declare more than one config file to be used (in which case the later ones override the earlier).
2. In that case, autoexec sections of the declared config files are all executed one after the other in the order of the configs they came from
3. You can use the autoexec section of the config to startup a game without user interaction and close DOSBox when the program terminates (using the exit command).

Therefore, by creating new config file that only has to contain any required alterations to your main DOSBox config, then copying of the DOSBox (noconsole) shortcut and adding a second config declaration to it that points to your new config, you have a shortcut to run DOSBox on altered settings. And so, you can make it run a specific game automatically when you run that shortcut.

I've got fifty configs for various games set up this way, another for plain DOSBox, and finally one that runs a selection menu between several MOD players and mounts my MOD music collection under drive D. It's easy to do once you get the hang of it.

There are certain things I've done to make the process a little easier:
1. The games I've made these shortcuts for are moved into a separate subdirectory of my main DOSgames dir, for the sake of convenience. (the name I use is Shorted)
2. That directory is the default C mount in my main DOSBox config, so that I don't have to repeat the mount line in every config that runs a game.
This means that all a game-specific config has to contain is the autoexec section with the exact commands that enter the game's subdirectory and run it. (assuming the game runs as it is supposed to on the default config)
3. The "plain" shortcut received an additional config declaration that:
* Unmounts the C drive
* Mounts my main DOSGames directory as drive C
* Runs Norton Commander.
The last thing is for convenience again, as I prefer the GUI over stumbling around blindly and using command line for everything.

[CorruptMylar]

Thanks Fifth,
I finally found and used your guide in Troubleshooting to do just what you described. Making custom shortcuts is the way to go. I saved I even made shwoopy icons for each of the games from screenshot pictures using Any to Icon.


Edit:
Okay here it is. Hope the pictures come out okay.

1) First picture shows where I keep all my files:
DOSBox folder - place where DosBox is installed. You may have it somewhere else. I like to keep it here.
DOSBoxConf - will house all the different .conf files for the specific configs of each game. Again, you may like to keep them somewhere else.
DOSGames - Game file folders for my downloaded games.

[img=http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/1793/dosboxshortcut01zq8.th.jpg]


2) Using the dosbox.conf file as a template, I created a new .conf file to handle the game specific configurations. Here are the settings I use for Master of Magic. It runs less choppy if you set the core=dynamic. Remember to put the header shown in [] above the correct configs.

[img=http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/5255/dosboxshortcut04me6.th.jpg]


3) I named it after the game and put it in my DOSBoxConfs folder. I leave the dosbox.conf as it is. I also threw my shortcut icons in there.

[img=http://imageshack.us/thumbnmail.png]


4) Below is a picture of the autoexec portion of my regular DOSBox .conf. The regular dosbox.conf will handle the mounting of the virtual C drive to my C:\DOSGames folder as always. The new MOM.conf will handle the changing of the directory to MOM and the launching of the magic.exe like shown above in 2).

[IMG=http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/6407/dosboxshortcut05tn8.th.jpg]

5) I made a copy of the DOSBox shortcut. I changed the Target as shown. The original .conf first, then the MOM.conf on top of it. The optional '-noconsole' option starts DOSBox with showing the console.

[img=http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/4861/dosboxshortcut08yu7.th.jpg]


And for a finishing touch I took a screenshot picture and converted it to an icon using Any to Icon, a shareware program I found.

[gregor]

Nice head's up for icon creation...

Anyway i just use the windows shortcuts to put in all commands that i need. Worked until now...

[_JustAName_1]

And for those of us who aren't Live-In-A-Cave, Mountain-Dew-for-Dinner drinking nerds...

You can also try a front-end called DOG:

http://www.freewebs.com/erikgg/

Its configuration setup is a bit more savvy at getting more out of dobox than D-Fend is.