Can you Make a Shortcut to a DOS game

[Dominator211]

I have an old laptop and I have some old DOS games. Id like to make shortcuts of these games but nothing seems to work... is there a specific way to do this? or is it Just not Possible

 

[Deleted User]

According to the DOSBox wiki, you can pass an executable to the dosbox executable, and it will automatically mount and run said executable that you passed to it.

Not sure if this is the most effective method, but what I've done before is create a batch script somewhere on my laptop, and then create a shortcut for said script on the Desktop. So, in your case, your DOSBox script would look something like this:

C:\path\to\dosbox.exe C:\path\to\dos\game.exe

...obviously replacing the above paths with the path to your DOSBox executable and the path to your game executable, respectively. Once you've saved this batch script, use Ctrl-C on it, then right-click on the Desktop and click "Paste Shortcut." You can then rename it to whatever you'd like.

If you're unhappy with the shortcut's icon, just right-click the shortcut, click "Properties," then click on "Change Icon." Click "Browse," and then navigate to a .exe or .ico file containing the icon you want; you could probably just use the game's executable for this.

Again, I'm sure there are more efficient ways of creating game launcher shortcuts, but this is how I went about creating shortcuts for Mednafen a few months ago, and it worked fine for me.

 

[XDel]

Are you running in DOS or DOSbox?

 

[Dominator211]

Are you running in DOS or DOSbox?

DOS it runs ME

 

[Ryccardo]

DOS it runs ME

A shortcut to a DOS program is called a PIF (it's automatically created with right click > new > shortcut if you immediately point it to such a program), afterwards you can go back into the shortcut's properties and change virtualization settings (terminal window size, environment, autoexec/config...)

 

[Dominator211]

A shortcut to a DOS program is called a PIF (it's automatically created with right click > new > shortcut if you immediately point it to such a program), afterwards you can go back into the shortcut's properties and change virtualization settings (terminal window size, environment, autoexec/config...)

I will do this after i get the memetastic game of sonic R to run properly

the game only runs with certain icons on screen the rest of the window is black

 

[Ryccardo]

the game only runs with certain icons on screen the rest of the window is black

Most DOS programs that expect direct video hardware access (as is itself expected in DOS) will not work (right) in a window, use fullscreen mode

 

[FAST6191]

If a straight shortcut does not work, or your anti virus melts when it sees a pif (second only to screensavers at one point) then you could always make a batch file that sets the relevant functions and calls the game in question.

Windows ME was a bastard though, and not just because it was bad in generally. I know technically it was the last one of the home division before they dropped the whole shell thing but my friends that suffered it had endless issues where the others (and myself) sitting pretty on 98 or later versions of 95 were still doing fine. That said even on 95 I would still boot into/exit windows and go into DOS at times just to spare me the aggro.

 

[Dominator211]

If a straight shortcut does not work, or your anti virus melts when it sees a pif (second only to screensavers at one point) then you could always make a batch file that sets the relevant functions and calls the game in question.

Windows ME was a bastard though, and not just because it was bad in generally. I know technically it was the last one of the home division before they dropped the whole shell thing but my friends that suffered it had endless issues where the others (and myself) sitting pretty on 98 or later versions of 95 were still doing fine. That said even on 95 I would still boot into/exit windows and go into DOS at times just to spare me the aggro.

the first PC is used ran ME. I mean i get a few blue screens here or there but its not bad

 

[FAST6191]

the first PC is used ran ME. I mean i get a few blue screens here or there but its not bad

Then you are one of the lucky ones.

 

[Dominator211]

Then you are one of the lucky ones.

i mean looking at it from a features standpoint it added a lot of new featres that are still in Windows today if you really think about it. While the exection may not have been great it still was the frst step in the right direction. like the wii u was for switch

 

[FAST6191]

I just remember being there at the time scraping drivers together to get people back to 98, and then when XP hit and ran like a dog on former ME machines people did not want to go back at all.

 

[Dominator211]

I just remember being there at the time scraping drivers together to get people back to 98, and then when XP hit and ran like a dog on former ME machines people did not want to go back at all.

RIP XP 2001 - 2014

 

[Ryccardo]

(off topic)

I'm of the same opinion, Win9x was great until you started adding shitty 3rd party drivers (funny how a 100 € unpopular-brand USB 1 scanner was considered low end)
They also show a lot more (attempted) pro-consumer effort (and I don't just mean no activation... huge list of themes/screensavers/sound effects* compared to their successors)

* Vista came close on the sound effect themes

RIP XP 2001 - 2014

Not RIP, it still works fine (and if you really want update reboot nags, there's still POSReady for another year )... though in my opinon XP became bloated with SP2, one day I might do a timed comparison for fun