Introduction
To run a DOS application in Windows 8 requires a
little bit of trick. It's not as simple as to just double-click on the program
and use it. But many of you are thinking that whoever will use a 16-bit program
or DOS Application nowadays.
But there are some tools and applications that
are only supported in DOS or the operating systems until Windows XP. For example, as I am the Computer Science Student then I have used Turbo C Tool which is supported in DOS mode (there is an alternative for this tool as well
but I love to use this). To run a DOS Application in Windows 8 we need
a third-party tool, called an emulator. The DosBox is a famous tool that helps
us to run a DOS Application in Windows 8. DosBox is an open-source tool and
is lightweight to install. DosBox is capable of running most DOS applications
inside its environment. Here follow the link to download it and don't worry; it
is safe to use.
To run the DOS Prompt, Download the Latest A version of DosBox.
Now once
downloaded just install it and I don't think you need to do any installation.
After installing the application the icon will be on your Desktop. Just
double-click on that and the DosBox will open on your computer.
You are now in the DosBox shell. Note that it
automatically puts you at the Z:\ drive; we want to change that. Try typing in
the DOS command C. Note that it says the drive doesn't exist. We could mount
the C drive every time we open the DosBox by typing mount c /home/yourname/dosprog
every-time.
But why do that when DosBox can create a
configuration file to take care of that for you! But first, we need to create the
file. At the DosBox Z:\ prompt, type in:
config -writeconf /home/yourname/dosbox.conf.
You now have the configuration file.
Type: exit
This puts you back in your terminal session.
Type: sudo gedit dosbox.conf.
This will open the DosBox configuration
file. Scroll down the dosbox.conf file to this section: [autoexec].
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
Type: mount c /home/yourname/dosprog
This will automatically mount the C: drive to your dosprog directory.
If you want DosBox to automatically start on the C: drive.
Enter C: on a
new line after your mount line.
Save and quit gedit
Now at the terminal prompt, type in DosBox; it should automount the C: drive
(and if you followed step 8a, it will also start you on the C: drive).
Manually Mounting a CD-ROM
Place a CD in your CD-ROM. Ubuntu will happily
auto-mount the CD for you to /media/cdrom0 assuming that you placed teh CD in
that drive. If you have more than one CD-ROM drive Ubuntu will have mounted it
to /media/cdromx where x is a number. Now that we're done with that OS stuff
back to DosBox.
Type: mount d /media/cdrom0 -t cdrom.
Now your CD is mounted in DosBox to the D: drive. Again if you'd like to test
this.
Type: D: and press enter.
Now type dir and press enter. You should again get a listing of all items on the
CD.
Now we will create a c++ program in the editor
and will take output in the DOS Prompt
Summary
In this article, we learned about How to Run DOS Prompt in Windows 8.