Dosbox and how to use it

The Quest for Glory series, was based on MS DOS operating system and back in those days the computer technology was different and slower. The only Windows based game in the series is the latest one, Quest for Glory V. If you try to run all the previous games on a computer, later than a Pentium I, then you will definitely have speed based issues and many errors to affect your game play. Especially in the case of Quest for Glory IV, you might not even be able to complete the game. This is where Dosbox comes in handy.

Dosbox is a freeware program that emulates the MS DOS operating system and the hardware environment required to play Dos games, such as the Quest for Glory games are. This way, you can enjoy your old Dos games on new computers without trouble and it will feel just like the old days (if not better). You can find and download the latest version of Dosbox from here: http://www.dosbox.com.

Once you have Dosbox installed, you can go to the configuration file and mount the drives you need, so you can access your games. The file can be easily found in the programs of your Windows Start menu, under the category of Dosbox. Once you find and open Dosbox.conf, skip all the way down the text, where you can enter your own commands.

To mount your main hard drive (notice that it's not recommended by the creators of Dosbox, but I do it anyway ;)), you can follow the following example (where the drive letter is C:\):

mount [space] c [space] c:\ [enter]

The same way, you can mount your dvd drive (where the drive letter is D:\)

mount [space] d [space] d:\ [enter]

If your games are on your main drive, and you want Dosbox to start by loading that drive, you can type the following command. (Drive C:\ as mentioned above):

C:\ [enter]

Now, let's say you have your Qfg games stored in a folder/directory called Sierra, which is in a folder called Games and that is located in your C:\ drive, which means the location of your Sierra folder is: C:\Games\Sierra.
If you are in C:\, which is your root folder or root drive and you want to go to the Games folder, you will need to type the following command to change to the directory:

cd [space] games. [enter]

And if you want to go to the Sierra folder located within the Games folder than you re in now, you will need to type the following command:

cd [space] sierra [enter]

Now, lets say you want Dosbox to start by going directly to the Sierra folder where your Qfg games are, so you won't have to repeat the process every time you run Dosbox. You can type the following command in your Dosbox.conf file:

cd [space] games\sierra [enter]

So lets sum it all up and see what we did so far in the Dosbox.cof file:

mount c c:\ (mounted drive c:\ as main drive)

mount d d:\ (mounted drive d:\ as dvd drive)

C:\ (loaded drive C:\ - main drive)

cd games\sierra (loaded the Sierra directory/folder where the QFG games are located).

Now you could be wondering... "What if I load Dosbox in the C:\Games\Sierra directory, and I want to go back to the C:\Games directory cause I want to load a game from there?"

Good question! Go back and change your Dosbox.conf file every time you want to load a different directory!

Now you must be thinking "You re kidding me, right?!"

Yes, I am! :)

If you want to move back one stage, type the following command:

cd.. [enter]

So that means, if you are in C:\Games\Sierra, typing that command will take you to C:\Games.
In addition, if you want to move from any folder, directly to the root directory of your current drive (C:\), you can type:

Cd\ [enter]

And if you want to load another drive (such as your dvd drive, which could be letter D:\). Simply type:

D:\ [enter]

Now you have some basic knowledge on how to navigate inside Dosbox. The next thing you need to learn, is to recognize and run the necessary files to play your games inside Dosbox.

In order to be able to start programs in Dos/Dosbox, you will need to know which file types to run in which order. Each file type, has a different extension(the last letters following the "." inside the file name. The most basic file types are these three: .bat (batch file), .exe (executable file), .com (command file). These file types are used in the priority stated above. Which means that if you have a .bat, a .exe and a .com file in the same directory, you should first run the .bat, then the .exe and finally .com. The main idea of course when it comes to games, is to install them and run them. So if for example you run the game successfully with the .bat or the .exe file, you don't need to be looking for the next type of file. ;)

By now you must be wondering, how do you get to see those files. Well, you will need to display the contents of the certain directory the files are located in. For that to happen you need to type the following command:

dir [enter]

If the contents of the directory will not fit the screen, then you can split the contents into pages by typing:

dir [space] /p [enter]

Have a look at the list with the files to decide which one to run in each case. If you want to display a certain type of files you can type the dir command followed by the filed type. For example if you want to display all the .exe files, type the following command:

dir [space] *.exe [enter]

If there are too many files of that kind in the same directory you can split the display into pages by typing:

dir [space] *.exe [space] /p [enter]

Finally, once you figure out which file you want to run, just type the file name without the extension. For example if you want to run the file: install.bat, simply type:

install [enter]