is it possible to install stuff to dosbox

Question

I legally downloaded an ISO of space hulk and a copy of dosbox 0.74-3.

I mounted the ISO, opened it up in dos and then in an attempt to play it, I tried to install it.

The whole thing just freezes like this.

I can't tell if it just takes forever to install because dos is slow or if its either:

A) doesn't know what I'm telling it to do..

...or

B) doesn't have any hard rive space it knows to install to.

Could you please tell me how I can play this?

Could you also tell me what to do if dos just doesn't accept any further keyboard input.

Answer 1

Could you please tell me how I can play this?

Running From CD/DVD

Assuming the game is mounted in DOSBox under drive D:, navigate the to the HULK\HRD_DIR directory and run MAIN.EXE with the appropriate options:

ex. DOSBox

C:\> D:

D:\> cd hulk

D:\HULK> cd hrd_dir

D:\HULK\HRD_DIR> main sb d e 220 7 1 -1

The second option to main (ex. d) should always match whatever drive letter is being used in DOSBox for the Space Hulk CD-ROM.

---

Hard Drive Installation

1. Copy the files and folders from the ISO (i.e. everything in your screenshot) to somewhere acceptable on your hard drive.

2. In DOSBox, run the mount command with the path to the copied files e.g.:

   ex. DOSBox

   mount e "C:\path\to\the\game"
   

   In this case, e is the DOSBox virtual drive letter you wish to access these files with (you can pick any letter already not in use/mounted, often E: through Y:).

   To avoid having to run this command every time you start DOSBox, you can add it to your DOSBox configuration file under the [autoexec] section e.g.:

   ex. dosbox-0.74-3.conf

   ...
   
   [ipx]
   # ipx: Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.
   
   ipx=false
   
   [autoexec]
   # Lines in this section will be run at startup.
   # You can put your MOUNT lines here.
   
   # These are just examples
   MOUNT D D:\ -t cdrom
   MOUNT C C:\some\path\DOSGames -freesize 1024
   
   # Space Hulk
   MOUNT E "C:\path\to\the\game"
   
   # Another example
   C:
   

   The DOSBox configuration file can usually be found under C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\DOSBox.

3. Assuming you have run ex. mount e "C:\path\to\the\game" in DOSBox (or have added it to your DOSBox configuration file and restarted DOSBox), navigate to to the HULK\HRD_DIR directory in the main DOSBox window and run INSTALL.EXE:

   ex. DOSBox

   C:\> e:
   
   E:\> cd hulk
   
   E:\HULK> cd hrd_dir
   
   E:\HULK\HRD_DIR> install
   

4. In the main the installation menu, pick your preferred language and press Enter to continue to the next screen.

5. Use the down arrow key to select the Sound FX option (this defaults to No sound) and press Enter again to continue to the Sound FX options screen. Use the up and down arrow keys to select a sound device (the plain SoundBlaster device should work without issue, though you can try others if you like).

6. Finally, press Enter to be taken back to the main options screen (from Step 5, above). Use the down arrow key to select Continue and press Enter twice to write a HULK.BAT file to disk.

7. Outside of DOSBox, navigate to ex. C:\path\to\the\game\HULK\HRD_DIR and open HULK.BAT with a text editor (e.g. Notepad). It should look something like the following:

   ex. HULK.BAT

   main sb D E 220 7 1 -1
   

   main refers to the MAIN.EXE file in the same folder and the rest of the items after it are options for when it is run:

   • Sound Device

   • CD-ROM drive letter

   • Language

   • Address

   • IRQ

   • DMA

   • DRQ
     
     

   Change the second option (i.e the CD-ROM drive letter ex. D) to whatever drive letter you assigned to the game files in DOSBox in Step 2 (e.g. E:) and save the file:

   ex. HULK.BAT (modified)

   main sb E E 220 7 1 -1
   

8. You can now use HULK.BAT in this directory (HULK\HRD_DIR) to start the game.

9. If you wish to make things a little easier (so you don't need to navigate to HULK\HRD_DIR and run HULK.BAT manually), you can make e.g. a second HULK.BAT file at the root of C:\path\to\the\game (so ex. C:\path\to\the\game\HULK.BAT) with the following code:

   ex. HULK.BAT (version 2)

   CD .\HULK\HRD_DIR
   HULK.BAT
   

   This HULK.BAT can then be run directly in DOSBox to start the game ex.:

   E:\> HULK.BAT