• 1) Download the DosBox Builds

  Download the 3 major DosBox builds referenced here. These include the official DosBox 0.74 release, DosBox Daum and JDosBox. NOTICE: As mentioned on the 'Important Files' page, please use the provided version of DOSBox Daum to ensure compatibility with this guide.

  Install or extract them as necessary. We will be utilizing DosBox Daum and DosBox 0.74 for our installation of Windows 95.

  Need more help? See the video on how to perform the installation!

• 2) Editing the Configuration File

  Once you have extracted or installed the various versions, it is now time to prepare them for proper use with windows. We will be utilizing the DosBox Daum build.

  Locate the configuration file, in DosBox Daum this is called dosbox.conf. Open this file using notepad or a similar text editor.

• 3) Configuring the output

  The output describes the way that your screen is drawn while using DosBox.

  Setting the output to openglnb, or opengl with no buffer, will allow us to use Voodoo emulation later.

• 4) Adjusting memory allocation

  The vmemsize parameter sets how much video memory is allocated to your emulated graphics card in megabytes. Setting it to 8 mb allows high resolution and color depth modes.

  The memsize parameter controls how much RAM is allocated to the system. 512 mb is the maximum for DosBox Daum, do not adjust this setting beyond 63 mb for other builds.

• 5) Configuring CPU

  It is important to put the CPU parameters exactly as they are shown here.

  These settings ensure optimum compatibility with the Windows 95 operating system.'

  Note that due to the way that DOSBox is designed, setting 'Max' cycles does not fully utilize the CPU. In order to achieve full utilization you must set 'cycles=max 105%

• 6) Configuring Voodoo

  We will set the voodoo output to opengl for now.

  Later in the installation, this will allow us to utilize voodoo emulation using the real graphics card in your host computer.

• 7) Ready to execute!

  It is time to start DosBox Daum.

  Locate the application and start it. You will be met with a simple command prompt as shown in the next step.

• 8) Running DosBox

  Initially in DosBox you will be loaded into the default Z drive. You will be looking at a plain, very DOS-like prompt.

  This prompt is actually a modified version of freeDOS, and has many of the same functions.

Play DOS Games on Windows 10, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 with DOSBox

There’s little reason to install Windows 3.1 in DOSBox because DOSBox itself can run pretty much any DOS game or application you need. The exceptions to this are software specifically made for. A DOSBox-based Windows 3.1 system. 64-bit Windows can run software written for Windows 3.x only through the use of an emulator such as DOSBox. This page provides a setup program that makes it easy to create a Windows 3.11 system that runs under DOSBox. Open the Windows File Explorer and navigate to the directory where DOSBox is installed, for instance: C: Program Files (x86) DOSBox-0.74. Right-click anywhere inside the windows and choose New. DOSBox 0.74-2 has been released! A maintenance release for DOSBox 0.74, which solves the following problems: Windows: Fix auto/max cycles algorithm on Windows 7, which helps with stuttering audio. Mac OS X: Bring a 64 bit version and improve performance. Linux: Fix the 64bit dynrec cpu core and a lot of compilation problems. DOSBox 0.74-2 has been released! A maintenance release for DOSBox 0.74, which solves the following problems: Windows: Fix auto/max cycles algorithm on Windows 7, which helps with stuttering audio. Mac OS X: Bring a 64 bit version and improve performance. Linux: Fix the 64bit dynrec cpu core and a lot of compilation problems.

Windows 98 On Dosbox

The ultimate solution to play DOS games on your PC with Windows 10, Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista or XP is DOSBox. DOSBox emulates DOS and the environment in which DOS ran in the past (like an old pc), including memory management and sound configuration, but with the power of your computer today. On this page we'll show you how to make the classic DOS game Prince of Persia or any other DOS game work. You can also play Prince of Persia directly on Windows 10. If you want to install a DOS game from an original CD-rom, you can find instructions here.

Download and install DOSBox

• Go to the download section on www.dosbox.com
• Download the desired package (in this example that will be the Windows (win32) installer)
• Install DOSBox

Download and extract Prince of Persia (or any other DOS game)

• Go to one of the many websites that offer shareware and freeware downloads of classic DOS games, for example www.dosgames.com
• Search for and download the desired game, in our example Prince of Persia
• Create a new folder on your computer, for example C:gamesdosprince
• Extract the downloaded zip file into that folder

Get the game working in DOSBox

Start DOSBox from Windows by double clicking the desktop icon. Once in DOSBox:

• Type in mount c c:gamesdos and press enter (this creates a virtual drive C: within DOSBox, which points to the GamesDOS folder on your local C: drive)
• If your games folder contains spaces, you have to put quotes around the folder path, for example: mount c 'c:gamesdos games'
• Type in c: and press enter to go the virtual C: drive
• Type in dir and press enter to look at the contents of the virtual C: drive
• Type in cd PRINCE and press enter to open the Prince folder
• Type in PRINCE and press enter to start the game

Automatic mounting

Windows 3.1 On Dosbox

As you always will need the virtual drive in DOSBox to play your game, it is recommended to put the mount command in your DOSBox configuration file. This way the games folder will be mounted automatically when you start DOSBox:

• Open the configuration file:
  • Windows 7: Press CTRL + ESC (or click the start button), type in dosbox and the options file should appear in the search results, click it
  • Windows 8: Press the Windows key + Q, type in dosbox and the options file should appear in the search results, click it
• Scroll down to the autoexec section (at the bottom of the file)
• Copy the mount commands below the comments (indicated by a hash). The lines below apply to this example:
  [autoexec]
  # Lines in this section will be run at startup.
  # You can put your MOUNT lines here.
  mount c c:gamesdos
  c:
  # to start Prince of Persia automatically when installed:
  cd prince
  prince
  
• Save the configuration file and restart DOSBox.

Play a game from CD with DOSBox

So you have found the original installation CD of a DOS game. But you can't install the game, because you need to do that in DOS! No worries! We have a guide which explains how to install and play a game from CD, all in DOSBox. Click here for more information!

Some DOS facts to keep in mind

In the DOS environment there are just 3 types of files that you can start/execute. These are .BAT, .COM and .EXE files. In this example (and in general when starting a DOS game), we'll look for files with .BAT (batch) and .EXE (executable) extensions. A batch file contains one or more lines of DOS commands and usually ends with the execution of a .EXE file. If you want to execute a .BAT or .EXE file in DOSBox, you can type in the file name without the extension. If there's a filename.bat and a filename.exe file in a folder, DOS will execute the filename.bat file first. If you don't want that, type in the entire filename including the extension.

Windows 2000 On Dosbox

DOSBox emulates the DOS environment, but doesn't support all DOS commands. It doesn't have to either. A list of supported DOS commands can be found on the DOSBox wiki section.

Supported games

With the method mentioned above, you can play a lot of classic DOS games. Here's an overview of some games, cherished by the DOSGamers crew, that you can play with DOSBox:

On the DOSBox website you can find an extensive list of supported DOS games.

Other stuff

DOSBox in full screen or high resolution window.
Mount CD-rom, images or other stuff.
How to set the (default) DOSBox speed.
Problems with keyboard layout.
Graphical user interfaces for DOSBox.

How to install and use DOSBox on Youtube

Have a look at our video in which we explain how to play any DOS game with DOSBox.