DOS ain't dead

Make In Windows // Use In FreeDOS (Emulation)

posted by bretjohn  , Rio Rancho, NM, 16.07.2021, 19:04

> How do I move stuff between Windows and FreeDOS under VirtualBox ?

Several things you need to know. First of all, there are several Virtual Machine softwares out there. On my computer, I currently have VMWare, Bochs, PCEm, DOXBox-X, QEMU, and VirtualBox. They all have unique quirks and advantages/disadvantages.

One thing I like about both VMWare and DOXBox-X is that they can both mount a physical disk and don't need everything to be an image (usually either .VHD or .IMG) the way the other VMs do. That means that if you format your real hard drive with a DOS-compatible partition (FAT12, FAT16, or FAT32), you can simply put the files there and everyone can see them with no special machinations required. Of course, you need to force Windows not do its normal default installation and format the entire hard drive for itself. There are ways of fixing this after Windows is already installed, but they can be painful and confusing.

You can also do it via a network connection inside the VM to some sort of "file server" on the host, which is what I know a lot of people recommend. I personally don't like that approach very much, but have used it in the past.

The way I usually do it is with a program called ImDisk (you can download it for free). This lets you mount disk images of various types (floppy, hard drive, and CD) and manipulate them all you want in Windows. After I've manipulated the image to the point that it is what I want the VM to see, I unmount it from Windows and start up the VM. I can do it the other way also -- do something in the DOS VM, shut down the VM, and then mount the image with ImDisk in Windows. Again, note that I do NOT need to use ImDisk (or networking) with VMWare or DOSBox-X since they can work directly with real media (though they both have other things about them that I don't particularly like and that other VMs do better).

Complete thread:

• Make In Windows // Use In FreeDOS - CLINT, 16.07.2021, 16:35 (Emulation)
  • Make In Windows // Use In FreeDOS - bretjohn, 16.07.2021, 19:04
  • Make In Windows // Use In FreeDOS - Oso2k, 16.07.2021, 23:01
    • Make In Windows // Use In FreeDOS - CLINT, 18.07.2021, 20:23