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Hi there. I am portuguese and I have a strong feeling of nosthalgy about the old ZX Spectrum 128K computer games I had great fun playing in my childhood and adolescence. I recently found that many of those games and other similar are available for PC on Internet sites like this one.
Let´s get straight to the matter : My Operating system is Windows ME which doesn´t support DOS! I followed the instructions on this site about how to install and run DOSBox ( DOSBox tutorial), but soon was greatly disappointed. When I try to run it, an Windows Error appears and my PC crashes. I have to press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot Windows. Perhaps my System isn´t compatible with DOSBox.
Could someone please help me on how to solve this problem so that I could play some good DOS games?
My CPU is a Intel Pentium III - 450 Mhz

[swiss]

maybe VDMSounds can help you out (though I do not know if it is for ME)

can you access the system logfile ? maybe there is further information on how and why dosbox crashed your system - BTW why does it completely crash, shouldn't win ME have a real "Speicherschutz" (a crashing app won't have anything to do qith the rest of the system )

[Eagle of Fire]

Your computer is not powerfull enough to run games decently with DOSBox anyways, so you should try the boot disk found on this site. It should probably be your best bet.

If you know DOS, then it should be pretty easy for you to understand how to use it. If not, come back here and we will help you.

[Mr.Snuggles]

Hey im using Windows ME. and most games on Dosbox run fine...maybe it's because i got a Celeron, 800mhz....well, try running the games without DosBox. I've been able to run many games like Blood and Duke Nukem 3D but older games than that i can run with no sound. VDM sound doesn't work with Win ME. Only works with the NT family, and newer computer. But maybe if someone can ask the people who made VDMsound for it to support not too old or newer PCs. :evil:

[Rogue]

Originally posted by Mr.Snuggles@Jan 1 2006, 07:27 PM
Hey im using Windows ME. and most games on Dosbox run fine...maybe it's because i got a Celeron, 800mhz....well, try running the games without DosBox. I've been able to run many games like Blood and Duke Nukem 3D but older games than that i can run with no sound. VDM sound doesn't work with Win ME. Only works with the NT family, and newer computer. But maybe if someone can ask the people who made VDMsound for it to support not too old or newer PCs. :evil:

@ Porthugh - Your system is not fast enough for DOSBox. Try to find Win98, as IMHO Win Me is worst possible OS. Are you running any ZX Spectrum emulators?

@ Mr.Snuggles - There was one version of VDMSound for Win9X/Me if I remember coorectly. (not official version)

[Porthugh]

I tried to use the boot disk available in this site, but with no success: After creating it I rebooted my system with floppy disk on my A: drive. Just before the DOS prompt show up, the phrase "Bad command or file name" appears and then, the keybord seems misconfigured, that is, when I type the ´:` key, the character that is typed is ´>`, and so I just can´t type ´C:`for instance.
It seems like all of you are far too high above me in what concerns to computer knowledge. This is too complex. I don´t know what VDMSound is, and only recently I knew there were such things as emulators. My system has low resources and lately, very often becomes too slow or even crashes. My system drivers are outdated and so is my hardware. Recently I also found that the fan in the back of my CPU doesn´t spin when I turn on my PC, and so I have to give it a push (literally). I guess I need a whole new PC and I intend to get a new one when I can afford it.
For now I think I'll use my PC mainly to learn and get useful information. My passion for computer games have made me lost TOO MUCH time in the past and I think that was too harmful for me.
I thank all the ones that had replied to my post.

[Eagle of Fire]

If your fan don't work well, I recommend you not to play games at all. Playing games usually toll the CPU a lot and so increase the generated heat. Without a fan, your computer will probably lock up simply because of the heat and could end up having something damaged as a result.

If the fan on the back of your CPU doesn't spin anymore it's the dust pollution, happens earlier or later with every desktop / tower PC. You just need to buy a new power supply, but I guess you'll prefer to buy entirely a new PC

[Porthugh]

@ Gamefreak: Yes, you´re absolutely right. If not, let us see:
-Processor with 450MHz speed;
-128MB RAM total memory;
-Video system: SiS 6326 adapter, NO video card;
-Hard disk C: with 10.0GB total storage capacity;
-Windows Millenium
-And so on...
A few years ago, even my CD-ROM drive (only CD reader) stopped working and then I bought a new one (CD recorder). Now I would like to have a DVD recorder, instead, but with my actual PC, video acceleration would be lousy... I decided not to replace any more hardware components. I think it is better to gather enough cash and buy a whole new PC.
Although everything, I remember I still had great fun moments with this PC, playing games like Witchaven 2, Blood, Blood 2, Duke Nukem, Diablo 2, etc. I spent countless days in front of a Keyboard. Now it seems those good times are over, and I don´t know if they´ll return some day... (Nosthalgy...) I have to cross the desert of Life... I´m not a Kid anymore :Tom:

[The Fifth Horseman]

You can remove the fan, clean out the dust and apply some sort of grease (like glycerin-based hand creme) to the axle. This worked for me many (MANY) times over.

You can also get a second HDD and a mobile HDD rack, so you can use one of the HDD's just for DOS (your choice which one). It won't take much configuration to get your HDD's set up so that after inserting one HDD into the rack it starts up in DOS mode.

FYI: DOS HDD jumpers set to Master, Windows HDD jumpers set to Slave (assuming both are connected to the same channel), DOS HDD installed in the rack, finally the BIOS configured so that it boots from the first HDD it detects, with the Primary Master HDD set to Autodetect and the Primary Slave set permemently (yeah, I know that's a lot of technobabble) will make it so that after inserting the HDD into the mobile HDD rack the machine will start up in DOS and with the HDD removed it will start up in Windows. Using that very combo myself on an old machine I've got.