EviLEd

From a post i made 3yrs ago on page 1, i got it to work like this. Different game but same concept. Good luck and let us know. This reply box will not allow me to use backslashes. So all backslashes will be replaced with forward slashes "/". Installing a MS-DOS game with multiple floppies Mortal Kombat 2. In this guide E:/LaunchBox is the location of LaunchBox and E:/Setup is the location of the floppy disk images. 1. Run e:/LaunchBox/DOSBox/dosbox.exe 2. At the command prompt type: mount e e:/ type: e: (here is where you mount all of the floppy disk images. I put them into a batch file and saved it at the root of E) type: run.bat (runs the command below) or type: imgmount a e:/setup/mk2_1/MK2_1.IMA e:/setup/mk2_2/MK2_2.IMA e:/setup/mk2_3/MK2_3.IMA e:/setup/mk2_4/MK2_4.IMA e:/setup/mk2_5/MK2_5.IMA e:/setup/mk2_6/MK2_6.IMA e:/setup/mk2_7/MK2_7.IMA e:/setup/mk2_8/MK2_8.IMA -t floppy (the DOSBox status window will show this) Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 3 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 4 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 5 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 6 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 7 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 8 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 1 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active type: a:/install (Answer E as the drive and answer e:/emulat~1/launch~1/games/mk2 as the install path) When prompted for the next disk press Ctrl + F4, then enter. (repeat as needed). In the DOSBox status window you can see it switching to the next disk. Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 3 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 4 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 5 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 6 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 7 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 8 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. 3. Open LaunchBox. From the menu bar click on Tools/Install Dos Game. 4. Type Mortal Kombat 2 and press Next. 5. Select Yes, my game is already installed into a folder. 6. Browse to E:/LaunchBox/Games/MK2/MK2.exe and press Next then Finish. 7.On the Edit Game screen press the search TheGameDB.net button to download all the meta data and box cover.

I posted the procedure i got to work with the floppy disk version of Mortal Kombat 2 on this thread. But that was 2 years ago. Maybe it still works? Lets us know. It's on the first page of this thread and now here: "This reply box will not allow me to use backslashes. So all backslashes will be replaced with forward slashes "/". Installing a MS-DOS game with multiple floppies Mortal Kombat 2. In this guide E:/LaunchBox is the location of LaunchBox and E:/Setup is the location of the floppy disk images. 1. Run e:/LaunchBox/DOSBox/dosbox.exe 2. At the command prompt type: mount e e:/ type: e: (here is where you mount all of the floppy disk images. I put them into a batch file and saved it at the root of E) type: run.bat (runs the command below) or type: imgmount a e:/setup/mk2_1/MK2_1.IMA e:/setup/mk2_2/MK2_2.IMA e:/setup/mk2_3/MK2_3.IMA e:/setup/mk2_4/MK2_4.IMA e:/setup/mk2_5/MK2_5.IMA e:/setup/mk2_6/MK2_6.IMA e:/setup/mk2_7/MK2_7.IMA e:/setup/mk2_8/MK2_8.IMA -t floppy (the DOSBox status window will show this) Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 3 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 4 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 5 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 6 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 7 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 8 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 1 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active type: a:/install (Answer E as the drive and answer e:/emulat~1/launch~1/games/mk2 as the install path) When prompted for the next disk press Ctrl + F4, then enter. (repeat as needed). In the DOSBox status window you can see it switching to the next disk. Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 3 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 4 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 5 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 6 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 7 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 8 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. 3. Open LaunchBox. From the menu bar click on Tools/Install Dos Game. 4. Type Mortal Kombat 2 and press Next. 5. Select Yes, my game is already installed into a folder. 6. Browse to E:/LaunchBox/Games/MK2/MK2.exe and press Next then Finish. 7.On the Edit Game screen press the search TheGameDB.net button to download all the meta data and box cover. "

SentaiBrad said If you use the library system in RetroArch, you select the game which opens another menu, you select run which then asks you what Core to use. If you didn't have both cores downloaded it might pick the only one you had available? Otherwise if you don't use that Library feature you load the core then the game or you select the game and RA gives you a list of cores based on the file extension you chose and you choose the core that you want. I am unsure where it is automatically picking cores for you. I made sure that everything was up-to-date through the online updater before i launched my first game. I did have both cores. There must be some logic somewhere that tells RA to use one core over another if i don't specify one.

I did see that thanks. But when i had it scan a directory of 7800 games it associated the mess core instead of the prosystem core. So it must have a config somewhere with that info.

Imgema said Jason Carr said Thanks @Imgema for clarifying that. Just so I'm following correctly, do I need to change the default Retroarch configuration to make this easier? If so, how? Ok, to avoid any confusion let me wrap this up. My original problem was that i couldn't play Atari 7800 games in LaunchBox when i used the RetroArch emulator option. The broblem was that RetroArch was trying to use it's MESS core to run it. I resolved this by going to "manage emulators", then RetroArch, edit and in the associated platforms there was the atari 7800 but with the -L "cores\mess_libretro.dll" command. I changed that to -L "cores\prosystem_libretro.dll" and it worked. I didn't change anything to my RetroArch settings or anything, i just guided Launchbox to use the prosystem core in RetroArch instead of the MESS core. I couldn't make either MESS core or MESS standalone to work through Launchbox. Now a day later i managed to make MESS standalone to work with Launchbox. That's because i wanted more odd systems like Arcadia 2001. So here's what i did. I added the MESS emulator in the list (because it doesn't exist by default) and in the wizard i selected it to be the emulator for Arcadia 2001. At first it didn't work. What i did to fix it was going to "manage emulators" again, then MESS, then "associated platforms". There i added the Arcadia 2001 tab and in the command line tab i added the line arcadia -cart. This way Arcadia games worked in LaunchBox, by using the standalone MESS, but not the MESS core in RA. Obviously, each system has it's own command line in order to work this way. So, in other words, RetroArch MESS core doesn't play any part in this, i use LaunchBox and a standalone MESS. I haven't managed to make the RetroArch MESS core to work with LaunchBox so far. I also haven't managed to make MESS work in RetroArch itself at all. The only thing that makes the MESS core in RetroArch work for me, is RocketLauncher for some reason. Otherwise, i just use the standalone MESS for everything. By the way, the default emulator check box doesn't matter much. In order to change what emulator to use with a system, go to your system tab, select all the roms with alt+A and right click, then edit. This will bring up a new "bulk edit" wizard that allows you to change the emulator to use with these roms. Thank you so much for this. I was having this exact same problem. I could not find the setting in Retroarch to complete this. I didn't realize how easy it was to fix in LaunchBox. Launchbox to the rescue! Does anyone know how to specify a core in Retroarch for a platform? In case i ever ran Retroarch without Launchbox and it picks the wrong core again.

Merry Christmas and thanks for the great product.

VMware Workstation can do both. But that would require him to install an operating system. I have used Windows XP Mode in the past to try out old games and it worked perfectly. The point of using a virtual machine is see how the expansion pack installs.

i think that "Illegal command e" means Illegal command error. Blizzard states this game is for MAC and PC. http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/legacy/ Wiki states this game should work on MS Dos and Windows and was released in 1996. So it should work in MS Dos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II:_Beyond_the_Dark_Portal There are 2 things you can try. 1. Take the mounting of the ISO out of the Equation. Extract the ISO to a directory and try to run the install again. Maybe the ISO is bad? 2. Do you have windows 7? Download this Windows XP virtual machine. Install it there to further troubleshoot the issue. Windows XP Mode v1.3.7600.16423 (Windows 8 does not support Windows XP Mode v1.3.7600.16423.) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us.....px?id=8002 Windows Virtual PC v6.1.7600.16393 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us.....px?id=3702 If it installs in that virtual machine, you might find out that it only copies the contents of the ISO to the installation directory. You can then do the same and bypass setup.exe with DOSBox. LaunchBox contains a great feature that will export the game you installed for easy install at a future date. In LaunchBox, highlight the game you installed, then click on Tools in the menu bar. From the drop down select Export Selected Games --> To LaunchBox Zip Package. EviLEd

Make sure you are using the newest LaunchBox. At the time of this writing it is v4.9 1. Run DOSBox C:\LaunchBox\DOSBox\dosbox.exe. Your LaunchBox install might be at a different location. 2. Copy the ISO to a location of your choice C:\LaunchBox\DOSBox\ISO\Beyond the Dark Portal.iso 2. Mount Beyond the Dark Portal.iso as a volume Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\LaunchBox\DOSBox\ISO\Beyond the Dark Portal.iso -t iso http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/IMGMOUNT 3. Change the volume to the E drive E: 4. Try to install the expansion again. You should receive a more specific error. I wouldn't be surprised if you can't install the expansion in DOS. You will receive an error like illegal command win or this program cannot run in DOS. A little bit more info here http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/GAMES:Warcraft_II Please let us know your results.

Rick, Can you tell us exactly what you are doing to install the 2nd CD and what happens when you try to launch the expansion?

It either cannot find the CD you mounted or the game will now require a cd crack to run. Like Jason said, enable debugging in DOSBox and confirm the ISO is mounted. You could also try to start DOSBox, mount the ISO in DOSBox and try to start the game. Mounting an ISO-File as volume Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\Images\MyImage.iso -t iso http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/MOUNT http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/IMGMOUNT Please let us know how you made out.

Maddog said Just downloaded it today, so I should have the latest version. I did tinker with adding it manually but could not get it to work when I came to the DosBox prompt. It tells me when i run setup, which is the installer, "illegal command win" and it automatically puts "win" before setup when I press enter. illegal command win means that you cannot run this in DOS. You must run it in windows. I remember running this game in Win95 or Win98se. Check out what i did here with another game from that era https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/games/the-simpsons-cartoon-studio-1996-no-dos-install

This reply box will not allow me to use backslashes. So all backslashes will be replaced with forward slashes "/". Installing a MS-DOS game with multiple floppies Mortal Kombat 2 In this guide E:/LaunchBox is the location of LaunchBox and E:/Setup is the location of the floppy disk images. 1. Run e:/LaunchBox/DOSBox/dosbox.exe 2. At the command prompt type: mount e e:/ type: e: (here is where you mount all of the floppy disk images. I put them into a batch file and saved it at the root of E) type: run.bat (runs the command below) or type: imgmount a e:/setup/mk2_1/MK2_1.IMA e:/setup/mk2_2/MK2_2.IMA e:/setup/mk2_3/MK2_3.IMA e:/setup/mk2_4/MK2_4.IMA e:/setup/mk2_5/MK2_5.IMA e:/setup/mk2_6/MK2_6.IMA e:/setup/mk2_7/MK2_7.IMA e:/setup/mk2_8/MK2_8.IMA -t floppy (the DOSBox status window will show this) Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Mounted FAT volume is FAT12 with 2847 clusters Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 3 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 4 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 5 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 6 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 7 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 8 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 1 of 8 now active Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active type: a:/install (Answer E as the drive and answer e:/emulat~1/launch~1/games/mk2 as the install path) When prompted for the next disk press Ctrl + F4, then enter. (repeat as needed) In the DOSBox status window you can see it switching to the next disk. Drive A: disk 2 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 3 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 4 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 5 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 6 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 7 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. Drive A: disk 8 of 8 now active Diskcaching reset for normal mounted drives. 3. Open LaunchBox. From the menu bar click on Tools/Install Dos Game. 4. Type Mortal Kombat 2 and press Next. 5. Select Yes, my game is already installed into a folder. 6. Browse to E:/LaunchBox/Games/MK2/MK2.exe and press Next then Finish. 7. On the Edit Game screen press the search TheGameDB.net button to download all the meta data and box cover. So now the kicker....the game prompted me to enter a word found in the manual....which i no long own

I am exploring this myself. I have Mortal Kombat II for DOS v5.0. It has 8 3.5" floppy discs. If i extract all the files it works until it prompts for disk 2. If i discover a process i will post it.

Jason Carr said Yeah, agreed. I have an old Pentium II just for that. But that said, it certainly would be nice to be able to run them all from one machine. All of my testing is on a Dell Optiplex 745 (2006). Intel 3ghz dual core, 800mhz FSB, 8GB DDR2 ram with a Nvidia Gefore GT 430 http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gt-430-oem-us.html.

Jason Carr said What I'm most curious about, though, is how performance is (and 3D acceleration even perhaps?) between VirtualBox, VirtualPC/Hyper-V, and VMware. Brad/Ed, have you compared them? No not yet. This was the first real test i had run. I only have 2 old PC games at the moment. The second being Unreal Tournament (1999) and that runs perfectly on Windows 7 x64.

SentaiBrad said If you get VMWare or Virtual Box and install Windows XP or 98 inside, in the program its self you can have the program look at an iso. The same way you would have the program see the OS Iso, do that but for the game. You can do one of two things, have the Program point towards the physical disc, or get ImgBurn and create an Iso from the disc. Either way both should work. I would also greatly suggest VMWare (Paid) or VirtualBox (Free) over Windows Virtualization. They don't update it the same way the other 2 programs do. I use VMware Workstation(paid) everyday for work. But i was trying to find something for everyone with the smallest footprint possible. With that said....i am a little embarrassed that i overlooked the CD/DVD emulation built into Virtual PC(thanks for pointing out the obvious). Once i mounted the ISO located on the host machine in Virtual PC it worked perfectly. I launched the game from the Windows 7 Start Menu and LaunchBox. Is there a way to edit an old post?

Hey Jason, I should have stated earlier that i wanted this to look like it was running from Windows 7 through LaunchBox. Which it is doing since it creates Start Menu shortcuts in Windows 7 and runs full screen without any boarders. Jason Carr said Cool, Ed. A couple of things. As you probably know, "Windows XP Mode" is basically just Virtual PC, which is a similar technology to Hyper-V on Windows 8. So once you have the Windows XP image, you can copy it over to any Windows 8 or 8.1 machine without issues, and you can run it inside of Hyper-V, which is Microsoft's latest virtualization technology. Just throwing that out there. Agreed. I wanted to be clear that the process above was meant for Windows 7 only. As per the first link http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7 "Windows XP Mode isn't supported on Windows 8." Jason Carr said As per the "missing CD" issue, unfortunately I think if the game did employ an anti-copying mechanism on the game disc, nothing is going to work sans for maybe using something like Daemon Tools to emulate it (it can mount an ISO a fake the copyright protection). In all honesty, though, NoCD cracks are almost always easier. It's ridiculous to have to use them when you own the CD, agreed, but sometimes you run out of other options. Also worth noting is that .bin/.cue files provide slightly better representation of an actual game disc, so it's possible that some of it was lost during the conversion, which is causing the problem. I kind of doubt it though. The first thing i tried was Daemon Tools Lite v4.49. But that broke the virtual machine and required a re-install of Windows XP Mode and Virtual PC. i had to convert the BIN/CUE to ISO because it wasn't supported by Virtual CD-ROM Control Pane. Once Virtual PC was shut down or put into hibernation mode it also closed Virtual CD-ROM Control Pane. I don't think the persistent mounting option works in Virtual PC the way i want it to. Jason Carr said Last thing; VMware I believe does have a free version out now as well, and traditionally they've handled games much better in their virtual environments than MS has, so that might be worth a shot. Sounds like you've made pretty good progress though. Thanks for sharing it all with us. You can install VMware Player v6.0.3-1895310(free) and run Windows XP inside of that. Enable 'Unity Mode' to make it look like it's running on Windows 7 and not in a box with boarders. But as you stated, running the games within VMware Workstation full screen is probably the best option. If i can move past the mounting of the image i can use your wonderful GUI!

I had some success using this http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7 Video Tutorial on how it works http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/videos/using-windows-xp-mode#tab=desktop Files needed Windows XP Mode v1.3.7600.16423 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8002 Windows Virtual PC v6.1.7600.16393 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 Optional Files Virtual CD-ROM Control Pane v2.0.1.1 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38780 WinISO v6.4.0.5170 http://www.winiso.com/download.html System Requirements Any version of Windows 7. Windows 8 does not support Windows XP Mode v1.3.7600.16423. Instructions 1. Install Windows XP Mode v1.3.7600.16423. 2. Install Windows Virtual PC v6.1.7600.16393. Reboot. 3. My game was in BIN/CUE format so i had to convert it to ISO with WinISO v6.4.0.5170. 4. Open Start-Programs-Windows Virtual PC-Windows XP Mode. It will take a few mins to setup the virtual machine. Once complete it will log you into Windows XP. 5. Open Virtual CD-ROM Control Pane v2.0.1.1 inside the Windows XP virtual machine or mount the ISO on the Host machine. The Windows XP virtual machine will automatically map drives to all available drives on the Host machine. 6. Install the game. 7. When complete, shutdown the virtual machine PROPERLY. Don't click on 'X' to close the virtual machine. It will put the virtual machine in hibernation instead of shutting it down. 8. Open LaunchBox. From the menu bar click on Game then add. Enter a Title for the game. 9. In the field for Application Path enter the shortcut to the game. Mine was located here C:-Users-Administrator-AppData-Roaming-Microsoft-Windows-Start Menu-Programs-Windows Virtual PC-Windows XP Mode Applications-Fox Interactive-Simpsons Cartoon Studio (Windows XP Mode).lnk 10. This is where i got stuck. The game will open full screen, but prompt me to put in the CD. Whether i kept the ISO mounted on the Host system or with Virtual CD-ROM Control Pane it still didn't work. There is an option in Virtual CD-ROM Control Pane to keep the ISO mounted persistently but it didn't work for me. I did not try to burn the image and leave it in the drive on the Host machine. That will be the next test. I am trying to avoid using a 'NoCD' crack.

Jason Carr said Hi Ed, welcome to the forums. Older Windows games are unfortunately the hardest and least-reliable types of games to get working on modern systems. Sadly, you could be in for quite a battle in getting the game to run. LaunchBox has nothing to help you there, unfortunately. Bd00 is right though, the first thing to try is to see if you can get the game working in compatibility mode inside Windows. Maybe do some searches on that game in particular to see if anyone has done it. It might work, it might not. If it doesn't, then maybe Windows 95 in DOSBox might work. Personally, though, I don't have any experience with that. Good luck! Do let us know if you get it working and what worked best. Thanks for getting back to me. If i have any success, even limited success, i will report back my findings. I really like the interface you created and i hope to make it work....somehow.

bd00 said Have you tried installing it in Windows using compatibility mode? Works for some old titles for me. That's the first thing i tried before i tried DosBox. But thanks for the reply.

I was curious to know if there is a guide for installing games that were meant for Win95/98se with LaunchBox? This game cannot be installed from DOS. I am using LaunchBox v3.1 The game is in BIN/CUE format. I was able to mount it successfully with Deamon Tools v4.49.1.0356 and view the contents of the image from within DosBox. When i ran setup.exe it returned "win setup.exe - Illegal command: win." which means this game cannot be installed from DOS. I understand that LaunchBox/DosBox are meant for 'DOS' and not for Windows. But i was hoping there would be a procedure to install old Windows games without relying on VMware/VirtualBox/GOG.com. A couple of guides on installing Win95 in DosBox listed here if all else fails. http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=17324 http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=24936 Thanks, EviLEd.