Issues with eXoDOS on Mac using VMWare Fusion as vm

[mjer90]

Could anyone possibly help me with troubleshooting? I am able to install eXoDOS on Windows 11 (x64) within a virtual machine on my Mac (iMac running OS 12.7.6). But when I attempt to run LaunchBox after the Setup is completed, nothing happens.

I don't get an explicit error, just nothing at all happens. Occasionally I get an "initializing" window but then nothing loads. I don't think it has anything to do with storage (I allocated 64GB and it shows I still have roughly 40GB left to use post-install). I am using VMWare Fusion as my virtual machine.

Troubleshooting steps already performed:

• I thought it might have something to do with Windows cloud storage OneDrive since I noticed that Windows automatically started to back up eXoDOS files to cloud storage, including the LaunchBox application itself. So I deleted and reinstalled eXoDOS solely to my Downloads folder which kept it all local. That didn't change anything.

• I've tried running the application as Administrator

• I tried running in Compatibility mode for Windows 8/7/Vista and none of those worked

• I tried the steps listed in this comment thread (though not sure this would matter since I'm not getting any errors related to exoDOS not seeing the machine as 64 bit) - https://www.reddit.com/r/dosgaming/comments/1acnzvo/comment/kk87cfp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

• I have restarted after each install and that didn't change anything

I also tried just running the games through DOSbox on Mac and through RetroArch but when I try to run the .BAT files, there's always an 'illegal command' error, even though I'm referencing the right directories / mounted correctly (seemingly). But I'd rather get it working on the virtual machine since the whole fun of this was the ease of using eXoDOS's UI.

Any help or recommendations on where I can take this question, if not here? Thanks in advance.

Edited November 10 by mjer90

[sundogak]

1. EXO doesn't need LB to run, it just makes it easier.  See #5 below. 
2. You don't launch any of the batch files for EXO directly from DosBox.  The batch files are designed to call the appropriate emulator in the Emulators folder (see #8) then spawn the program.
3. The version of LB in the EXO package is pretty old.  You should make sure you can even run LB in VM by just downloading most current free version and seeing if will run.  LB does have various dependencies that on a Windows computer it will install automatically. In VM, not sure if that happens and without them LB won't run. I have run a Mac VM in Windows but not other way around. 
4. Don't set compatibility back to old versions.  Also don't run LB in admin mode. 
5. Have no idea why OneDrive would be going and cloud storage, never seen that with Exo but not using lite version. 
6. If you want to run a program outside of LB that will be easiest to troubleshoot. Assuming you installed exo in paths it wants to see then you can go to the following directory (!dos), click on Install.bat and then after completed you can launch from the game batch file.  No LB needed:
   
7. The Install puts the files here:
   
8.  The exo auto installer can sometimes be wonky but on a new install it should be okay. Key is that EXO expects things in certain folders as batch files are used.  Below is typical install folder setup for EXO. As long as the paths within the EXO folder are as it expects then the batch files will run.  The key folders are the ExoDOS, emulators, and dosbox folders. 

Now whether this will all run inside a VM (or the EXO updater/downloader), I am somewhat doubtful but if you can run DosBox then potential.  The key though is making sure your folders are correct and base install works.  Running LB in the VM (assuming can get running) won't be very speedy. Space may also become an issue as you add media to LB.  The full exodos package is about 800 GIGs.  ExoDOS has a Discord so may ask there as pretty unique use case (and not really a LB issue if cannot run the base EXO package).