How to Run DOS Games on Windows

 

For Windows users, the way to get an older game running might be as easy as locating the '.exe' file and double-clicking on it. However, more often than not, the file will either not run at all, or run so fast that the game is unplayable.

There are multiple workarounds for this problem, but the best choice possible is DOSBox. DOSBox is pretty much the gold standard app for playing old games on modern PCs, and Good Old Games (which packages and sells old games) bundles the games it distributes using DOSBox as well.
Using DOSBox is extremely simple, just follow these steps:
1. Step one is to download DOSBox. Just go to this page to download the software. You can download versions for different operating systems on this page, including Windows, Mac and various Linux distributions.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to install DOSBox on your computer.
3. Make a folder where you're going to keep your games. This is not a required step, but it makes the rest of your work simpler. Just create a "RETRO" folder in C:\ for convenience. You can give it any name you like, but keep it under eight characters.
4. Transfer your games to the RETRO folder you just created - keep each game in its own sub-folder, don't mix them up.
5. Start DOSBox. Now, you'll see a terminal which reads Z:\> before the cursor. Here, you need to tell DOSBox which drive it can access. To do this, type: MOUNT C C:\RETRO and press Enter on your keyboard.
6. Type in C: and press enter, and you'll be inside the RETRO folder. Now, you'll need to go to the folder of the game you want to play.
7. Type in CD NAME, where NAME is the name of the folder the game is in. To play Doom, for example, we type in CD DOOM. Press enter.
8. Now, you need to run the game's executable - in this case it was DOOM.EXE, so we typed DOOM and pressed enter.
9. To find the file, you might need to search for executables. If you need to do this, all you have to do is type DIR *.EXE and press enter. A game might instead have a .COM extension, so if your .EXE search draws a blank, try DIR *.COM instead.
10. That's all you need to run the game, but running the game smoothly takes one extra step. DOSBox doesn't just run DOS on your PC - it also emulates the old system's speed. So if the game is playing too slowly, you can speed it up by pressing the CTRL and F12 keys at the same time. If the game is playing too fast, press CTRL and F11 at the same time instead.
11. After you're done playing and quit the game, if you want to go back to the RETRO directory and play another game, type CD.. and press enter. If you just want to close DOSBox, type EXIT and press enter.
You can also install a DOSBox frontend, which turns games into one-click executables. Our top pick is DOSBlaster, which is also available on the downloads page of DOSBox. This app requires DOSBox to be installed on your computer as well, but once that's done, you can use DOSBlaster to import games which are either saved in a directory, or archived in a ZIP file. These games are managed by DOSBlaster through a GUI, so you only need to use the frontend.
To use this, you need to do the following:
1. Step one is to download DOSBox from this page. After you've installed DOSBox, download and install DOSBlaster, also from the same page.
2. Run DOSBlaster, and click on File > Import.
3. Select the games you want to import - either find the directory you've copied them to, or the ZIP file they are stored in, and click Import.
4. When a game is imported it shows up in the DOSBlaster window with a little joystick icon and the name of the game. Just double click this to run the game, or right-click to add and edit information like Name, Genre etc. This can help if you install a lot of games, because DOSBlaster can use these attributes to sort the titles.
5. Once you exit a game, you're brought back to the DOSBlaster window that is closed normally, like any other Windows program.
6. The DOSBox shortcuts listed in step 10 above work to adjust the game speed.