Hi Guys, I want to install a DOS 6.22 system on a virtual box. I have tried the Microsoft Virtual Machine under windows 7 Professional but to no joy. I have looked on MVM forums, I have gone through numerous posts there but did not find anything useful to me. I want DOS for old games. I have tried DOSBOX but it is to slow (I don't know if its recourse there were no updates recently or is it because the technology it uses). Then I read that the Virtual Machine might be the thing I am looking for. Before any one asks I do have quite powerful gaming rig so the raw processing power should not be a problem. If someone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it!!! Cheers!
Dosbox too slow? What do you have for a system? I can run anything on dos box... I don't know anything about VM's so I can't really help there...
You should be able to install it on a virtual machine. Two that come to mind which have free versions are VMWare and virtualbox. DOS could run on a 486, and any good VM will support it.
Tried virtualbox? I've used it for *nix in the past, works quite well. You could use it with FreeDOS for some open source goodness I'd try debugging your copy of DOSbox first though, no sense in a complete OS environment for just a few apps -- it may be the specific game you're playing.
I have i5 2500, MSi P67A mobo, GTX560 Ti and 4gb corasir balistix ram. DOSBox always had performance issues, you can even read it in the manual That's why i thought I'd try different approach and see how that would go. Guys, thanks for the info, I'll make sure to follow it all up. Cheers
Depending on what software you are trying to run, virtual machines can be really problematic too. If you play DOS games a lot, I would recommend doing like me and grabbing an older machine for this, running a real DOS instal. It's a lot less hassle for me. Alternately you can install DOS on a usb stick and boot that as well. Reason being is I found a LOT of games have strange idiosyncrasies that cause lock up or crashing in VM. Running them on bare metal instal, even on modern hardware don't have these problems. USB install is handy also if you need it for utilities like hardware diagnostics.
Hi Guys, I thought I let you know what I did in the end. Went to a local small computer shop and asked the guy if he has any old computer parts for sale... I got most of what I need for free, now I have two old PC's (Both PII) one running FreeDOS and other Win98SE. I have spent first night playing UFO: Terror from the deep If it comes to VM - idea is pretty good but amount of setting up and things that can go wrong is immense (as somebody pointed it out). I am referring to old operating systems on VM though. I bet that if you want to install say Windows XP there would be almost no problems. Nothing will beat up physical thing though. The amount of fun I had putting them PC's together was huge so I will be doing it all again soon just for the sake of it. Cheers!
OK, so you've found a solution in setting up some old physical machines and that's actually more or less one of two ways to go about it. The other would be DOSBox (or another _emulator_) and not DOS 6.22 in a VM. Most other VMs virtualize the hardware in your current physical system. While this is a good thing for modern software it's the absolute opposite for old DOS based games. The reason for this is that most of the old DOS games need direct hardware access, and to "older" hardware at that. Therefore you either need an old(er) physical machine or you need to completely emulate one. DOSBox does the latter. That makes it the first port of call for old games, although it can be a bit of a pain to set up
