In the DOSBox Portable page, it says you can set up C in the DOSBox to point to a path on your portable drive by adding this to the dosbox.conf file:
mount C: \PathOnMyDevice
I created a folder named DOSGames on the root of my thumb drive. However, "mount C: \DOSGames" doesn't work. I've only been able to get it to work if I do "mount C: G:\DOSGames". I'd rather not do this, however, since the thumb drive doesn't mount to drive G: on every system (it's G: on my work PC, but I: on my home PC).
Any advice on how I can make this generic?
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Never mind -- I found my problem.
I've add inconsistent results with the Windows-based auto-run launching the PortableApps menu, so I set up a U3 launchpad entry for my device that would run PortableApps and set it to launch on startup. In that .U3P file, I forgot to specify the working directory for PortableAppsMenu, so the device drive wasn't the default drive when DOSBox ran. I fixed that and now the suggested "mount C: \DOSGames" works fine.
Ah ok. Keep in mind that running within U3 may cause unpredictable effects and is not supported on any of the apps published here.
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I just double-checked it and it works just fine, exactly as advertised. I even did it with DOSGames just to be sure.
Be sure that you're using a backslash (forward slash won't work).
Be sure that you're using the correct case as I think it may be case sensitive.
Be sure you're adding it at the end of the file in the [autoexec] section, otherwise it has no effect.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Well, I ran DOSBox Portable on my computer at work, and it automounted C to \Games perfectly... my external hard drive was registered as drive M:...
However, at home, DOSBox refused to automount \games and seems to require the drive letter... My drive was listed on my home computer as R:...
It appears there is no way to refresh DOSBox portable so that the initial drive letter is not always the assumed drive... I couldn't find any config or ini files like I did with Firefox (which doesn't seem to have any problems with differing drive letters).
grey88 aka Major PITA, distant cousin to Royal PITA, and his son Minor PITA...
PS I was able to reassign my drive letter to M:, and lo and behold it worked again... but that doesn't fix the problem for machines that can't have the same drive letter that was assigned when the DOSBox was first installed and run... does this mean that we will have to delete DOSBox and reinstall it every time our external drive letter changes??? I apologize if I seem to be ranting, but I was thinking about what erossing said to start this thread.
aka Major PITA... ask me what it means, as you will be amused...
Sorry, but it works for me. I set it up on my P drive. Ran it. Worked fine. Moved it to my C drive. Ran it. Worked fine. It's something else besides the drive letter with your setup.
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Hey John, can you read and reply to the newsletter topic? You might have just missed it.
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Could it simply be different computers confuse the DOSBox Portable program on the same drive? I notice that Firefox Portable has an ini file which spells out what drive letter and directory the program was last run from.
I also copied the DOSBox and Games directories (after setting up a "PortableApps" directory) to my C: drive, shut off the external drive, and ran DOSBox with no errors also.
I am not a programmer, so I don't know how easy or hard a task this undertaking is, but I appreciate all your efforts John...
Thanx from a tinkerer,
Grey88
aka Major PITA... ask me what it means, as you will be amused...
It works fine when moving PCs either. The mount command in DOSBox specifically supports relative paths like that. There are no changes to it in DOSBox Portable. And I just tested it moving PCs. One was G one was H. Worked fine on both, as it should.
There's no need for DOSBox Portable to support tracking the drive letter as DOSBox lets you use relative paths as is spelled out. And DOSBox does not track the drive letter internally... it does the relative path on each launch.
Not sure what's wrong with your PC, but it's nothing to do with DOSBox Portable. Try it on your home PC as another drive letter and it'll probably work fine. Maybe it just doesn't work as drive R. Who knows.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Not to be a pest here, but I found that if I actually run "DosBoxPortable.exe" from explorer (in the DosBoxPortable folder), the \Games directory correctly automounts, but if I run it from the portableapps menu, it won't automount if the drive letter has changed since the first time the menu was run on the same windows installation on the same system. Does the working directory for the menu depend on the drive letter? I have not had any problems with any other programs running, but then they are all self-contained (without data files outside the main directory of the program)
PS I reinstall Windows on a regular basis (about once a month or so) and retested DosBox the last 2 installs. At work I changed the drive letter manually (to W:) and was able to duplicate the conditions.
Brian
aka Major PITA... ask me what it means, as you will be amused...
I've been using DosBox on my stick for quite a while now (9 months or so). What advantages are there to using the PA packaged version? I assume it is a better install process (in the past I installed it to my hard disk and then copied over to my stick). Beside the better install process what are the other advantages?
Thx,
-IP
All settings (if any) are backed up. It follows the PAF specifications (the specs all apps on this site follow). Cleans up any traces that could be left on the host machine. Cool Splash Screen.
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It's 1.5MB instead of 3.6MB installed. It uses a Data directory in a location understood by the PortableApps.com Backup program. And you don't have to install it locally first (which requires admin rights)... you just install it directly to your portable device.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John,
Didn't mean to leave message... sorry...
Brian
aka Major PITA... ask me what it means, as you will be amused...
So this is a trick I learned a few years ago and literally tested 15min before this post,
if you edit "DOSBox Portable\data\settings\DOSBox.conf" and set the mount path on your AutoExec sections to
>MOUNT <DRIVELETTER> %CD%\<PATH_TO_DOS_FOLDER
it will detect what your drive letter is, and use that instead of manually checking your drive letter and moutning it, I have done this on ALL my drives now.