How to play abandonware games

Why is this not working?

Most of abandonware games on PC were created for the MS-DOS operating system. Today's computers no longer offer the same environment for the programs. Hopefully, some people were unhappy with that and created free softwares to mimic the old computers operating system!

Ok what program should I use

Depending of you operating system, you have different options.

• Windows XP and Vista

  Most people are using Microsoft's Windows and an easy solution is available : D-fend Reloaded. With a graphical interface, a lot of things are done for you behind the scene. For a little tutorial, click here.

• Windows 2000 and less

  If you are using an old version of Windows, you may try to install D-Fend Reloaded. If this doesn't work, you can use another frontends or DosBox, which means installing the game like in the old days.

• Mac OS X or various Linux distributions

  For these operating systems, you can use DosBox or one of the various frontends available. Being a mac os X user, I strongly recommend Boxer.

I need help this is not working!

Please note we do not provide support for playing abandonware games. We strongly suggest you to ask for help on dedicated forums, like TNAAF or Abandonia.

DosBox setup

You should carefully read the DosBox Wiki for a good walkthrough. Mac OS X users should pay attention to those instructions.

D-Fend Reloaded Setup

As a start, download the latest setup of D-Fend here. Once installed, you shall follow the following steps (click on the pictures for full size) :

Step 1 Ok, starting with a fresh D-Fend install, you should end up on this screen after launching the program. You already have one software installed, it is DosBox shipped with D-Fend. Lauching it will bring you to an operationnal MS-DOS. Guess you want to play a GAME so not much to do here. Go to step 2.

Step 2 First thing to do, unzip the downloaded game somewhere. You may want to unzip it on the desktop or in your own game folder but I would not recommend it. D-Fend can handle this but it's not covered in this tutorial. So you should click on Extras > Open game folder... This is where you will put the game contents. On to step 3.

Step 3 The game folder is the virtual drive used by the default D-Fend setup. For this tutorial, I unzipped the cherished Monkey Island 2 in this folder. The name of the folder itself is not important. Once this is done, go to the step 4.

Step 4 Now that the contents of the game are on the virtual drive, we must add the game to D-Fend. Click on "Add" then on "Add..." A new window will appear, as shown on the screenshot, the "Profile editor". We must set the program file by clicking on the folder icon as shown by the brown arrow. See what's next on the step 5.

Step 5 The explorer will show you the contents of the virtual drive. As we extracted the game contents in it before, I just had to open the "MONKEY2" folder. This game has only one executable file so it's quite easy. Some game have several executables files you can select in this step, usually the right file to select is named after the game. So you select the executable and click open. Next step.

Step 6 Coming back to the Profile editor, we can see the executable file in the Program file field. The last thing to do is setting the name of the game in the Profile name field. Once this is done, click on Ok. Go the to final step.

Step 7 Now D-Fend show the game below the DosBox line. You can start it by double clicking on the line. Have fun :)

Additionnal steps Amongst different problems we have run into, here are some additionnal advices :

• Game setup

  You all remember the setup.exe for having sound, better graphics or even mouse support. You should add the setup program to the Setup section below the Program section and launch it before playing the game.

• Virtual Drive

  Some games require you to emulate a floppy drive and have the game content mounted in it. To add this floppy drive, edit the game profile, click on "Drives" and add a new drive. You may use a folder or a real floppy image (.img) for the floppy content.

• Memory Problems

  Some games have memory problems at startup, like error message telling you "Not enough memory". You should try several combinations of options in the "Memory" part of the profile, starting with enabling loadfix.

For additional help, you should ask your questions over the Vogons forums.