Help with creating a shortcut in DosBox
 

Hi guys.

I'm a little new in using Abandonware and DosBox. I suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism, so I need written, step by step instructions.

I recently downloaded Covert Action from your site. I'm trying to create a shortcut on my computer from the DosBox I have. It's 0.72. I've also got an old X-COM UFO Enemy Unknown I need to link to.

I'm working on a Sony Vaio PCV RZ14G. It's got a Pentium 4 CPU with 2.53 GHz with 1.00 GB of RAM. I've got a Creative SB Audigy 4 sound controller and a NVIDIA GeForce 6200.

Sorry I'm a complete newbie. My major's in Library Science, not computers.
Any help you can provide will be appreciated.

try this
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=14406

What I'd do if I were you would be to edit the autoexec part of DOSBox to mount your drive automaticaly at start up, then create batch (.bat) files in that directory to make the games start all by themselves.

Batch files work just like plain text, except that those lines will be executed when you run the file (just like an .exe). So you simply need to figure it out once, write it in a batch file and you'll be fine afterward.

I'm trying to work on it...
 

Sorry about this. I printed "A beginner's guide to DOSBox" and downloaded a version of Norton Commander.

I started working on my old XCOM UFO game.

When I did this

"Mount c d:\Oldgames\MPS\UFO" - the directory is Oldgames, the subdirectory is MPS\UFO.

"c:"

"call ufo.bat."

Then it says on the screen, "Z:\c
Illegal command: c."

What am I missing here?

Thanks.

Here's the whole thing you must do:

1. Get a shortcut to dosbox to your desktop.
2. Right-click it and choose properties
3. On the target line (the first line), type the following (without the *'s):

C:\DOSBox-0.72\dosbox.exe* c:\game\game.exe* -conf c:\game\dosbox.conf* -noconsole -exit

The first * is the basic path to your dosbox. When youre making a new shortcut, remove everything else but this. Including the -conf part.
The next * is the path to the game. Another basic thing. Remember to add the -conf part at the end of this path.
The last * is combination of the two. Put here the path to game's directory, but instead of running any programs, but dosbox.conf at the end. Add -noconsole & -exit too, so it will remove the console and turn off dosbox when you quit.
And remember, If your folders use spaces, remember to add the paths between brackets ("").

Hopefully this'l help ya.

You're missng :
As in, C: is the correct command. C on its own is not recognized as one.

That's not how I'd recommend doing it. This way is quite inflexible, may be confusing and is bound to cause problems soomer or later.

This is how I did it with Covert Action:
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\dosbox.exe" -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\dosbox.conf" -conf "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.70\Configs\Covert Action.conf" -noconsole
Notice that there are two config files declared. The first one is the default DOSBox config, the second one only needs to contain the options that you want changed from the values in the default config. The -noconsole parameter disables the status console window.
Covert Action.conf is not stored in the main DOSBox directory, but in a subdirectory named Configs. That's because having several dozen such configs in there was a bit confusing (it's easier to manage them when they're all in the same place and there are no other files there).
When you have declared two config files, their autoexecs are both executed, in the order the files were declared.
This is my autoexec from Dosbox.conf:
mount c f:\dosgames\
C:

This is my autoexec from Covert Action.conf
cd covert
covert.exe
exit

Notice it doesn't contain the lines responsible for mounting the games directory and changing to the C drive. It doesn't need them, since they are already executed in the default config. The exit at the end of the autoexec means that when DOSBox gets to that line (when you exit the game), it will automatically close.