If you ever wanted to play a video game or run an application on, say, Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit), you may run into problems trying to run the application. This guide shows you how to run those old Dos 16 bit games/application again through a program called DosBox.
Important Notice: This guide was originally published by me on ZeroPaid. It is being republished here for the purpose of updating the guide with any new information I can obtain so that some of the more difficult to play games can be run.
So you’ve been digging around in your old CD collection one day and you have managed to locate a CD filled with really old games. So, because you wanted to give those games a try again, you decide to put these games on your new operating system. You double click on the executable file and wind up getting an error message like this:
The reason you get this error message is because the game or application you are trying to run is a 16-bit program. 16-bit programs were hugely popular back in the days of DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95. Since then, Windows has stopped supporting 16 bit programs right out of the box by the time Windows Vista came around. In fact, if you see those notes about Windows x86 programs, what you are seeing is notices that certain programs only run as a 32-bit program or 64-bit program. Even 32 bit compatible programs are at the beginning of the phasing out process of the more up to date 64-bit programs. Does that mean you are out of luck when it comes to making a 16-bit program run on Windows 7 or Windows 8? Not by a long shot. This guide will show you the basics on how to run those old 16-bit DOS programs again.
Step 1 – Download and Install Dosbox
Simply go to the Dosbox website and download the latest version of Dosbox. Next, doubleclick on the downloaded application to install it.
Note: Frontends are entirely optional. They offer a visualization of what we are doing that might make things easier, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we aren’t going to be using any frontends to keep things simple.
Step 2 – A Little File Management
You’re going to want a folder on your hard drive that will store all the 16 big applications. Since we’ll need to access it directly from Dosbox, it’s actually best practice to create that folder on the root hard drive (meaning, you go onto the hard drive you want to do this on – typically “C” drive).
You can name this folder anything you like, but give it a name that will allow you to remember what it’s for. I chose the name “OldGames”.
When that’s done, you’ll need to find the contents of the game in question. When you do, create a folder in the “OldGames” directory and name it whatever the short title of the game is. In this case, I’m wanting to run “Dune 2: The Battle for Arrakis”, so I name the folder in question “Dune2″ (always try to keep the folder names as short as possible. Sometimes, Dosbox doesn’t like long folder names).
After you created the folder, move the contents of the game into that folder. We’re done doing some file management!
Step 3 – Open Dosbox and Mount a “C” Drive
The thing to remember is that Dosbox emulates a file system (namely, a Dos file system). So, we need to tell it where we want it to think the “C” drive is. In this case, we want the folder “OldGames” to be our emulated “C” drive. Open up Dosbox and you’ll see something like this:
Yes, when we are attempting to run an old Dos program, you are likely going to be using Dos prompt. Don’t panic! I’ll tell you everything you need to know.
What we want to do at this point is mount the “C” drive. Since in this tutorial, we created the directory “OldGames”, we are going to type in “MOUNT C C:\OldGames”. Hit enter and you’ll see this:
That’s it! If the message you get is a lot like the one you see here, you’ve successfully mounted the “C” drive.
Step 4 – Running a Game
Now, we need to run a game. On your actual hard drive, examine the contents of the game you placed in the “OldGames” directory. You will likely see an executable file with the name of the game. In my case, I see that the executable I want is “Dune2″:
Now that I know where the file is, I can navigate to it in Dosbox. Remember, executable files end in “.exe”. By default, modern Windows Operating Systems frustratingly hide file extensions. While this can be changed, knowing that executable files end in “.exe” is sufficient for our purposes.
Go back into Dosbox. The first thing we need to do is navigate to the virtual “C” drive we mounted earlier. To do that, all we need to do is type in “C:\” and hit enter:
Dosbox is telling us that we are in our mounted “C” drive. At this point, we want to navigate to the folder with our game in it in Dosbox. In this case, you need to type in “cd” (stands for “Change Directory” in case you’re wondering), then space, then “C:\[name of game directory]“. In my case, I typed in “cd C:\Dune2″ like so:
OK, now that we’ve successfully changed to the Dune2 directory, we now want to run the executable file. To do this, simply type in the name of the executable file. In my case, it’s simply a matter of typing in “Dune2.exe” and hitting enter:
When I hit enter, I see that the game is already starting:
At this point, we should point out that if the game has a cursor in it and it doesn’t move when you use the mouse, click on the screen and it should work. If you want to regain control of the mouse to quickly do something outside of Dosbox, you can hold down “Alt” and press the tab button. You’ll then be able to work outside of Dosbox. Working outside of Dosbox does not pause whatever is happening inside of Dosbox, so make sure you pause your game somehow if you can’t just let it keep running without your input.
Step 5 – Properly Exiting Dosbox
When you are done playing your game, you’ll be put back to a screen that looks like this:
To properly exit, simply type in “exit” like this:
Hit enter and dosbox will close.
That is it! Happy gaming!
Supplemental Guides
If you attempt to run a game or application in DOSBox and have an error that says that you require a Windows environment, please refer to our guide How to Play 16 Bit Windows Games/Applications on a 64 Bit Computer.
Update:
If the game is prompting you to insert a CD, try following our guide on how to get a 16 bit DOS game that requires a CD to run.
FAQ
When I try and run my game, I get the error message “Not enough memory for 16 color version. Release TSRs and retry.” What can I do?
While it is unclear if this will work every time, try typing out “loadfix” and hit enter. You should get the message “64 kb allocated”. After that, try running the executable again and see if that fixes the problem.
Thank you for help us. Can you please tell me how can we play the old games in Full Screen Mode,
Exp: Chaos Engine Game does not setup Full Screen. so please let me know how ?
Thank You again.
Nirmal ( Sri Lanka )
When running Dosbox, simply hold down Alt and press Enter. That will take you into full screen mode. To get back out of full screen mode, do Alt+Enter again. That should do it. 🙂
When I try to run Mixed Up Mother Goose, following these steps, it appears “This Program requires Microsoft Windows”. What should I do?
It’s the first supplementary guide linked to at the bottom of this guide: https://www.freezenet.ca/guides/compatibility-and-emulation/how-to-play-16-bit-windows-gamesapplications-on-a-64-bit-computer/
You need a windows environment and Windows 3.1 is capable of handling many 16-bit Windows games. 🙂
I get all the way to the final setup, when I type setup.exe and hit enter, I get this:
C:\READRAB>setup.exe
C:\READRAB>win setup
Illegal command: win.
(I also tried renaming the setup file and trying with the new name, but it still gives me this error)
I’m assuming setup.exe is one of the files for a particular game? Try typing dir and hitting enter. That command lists all of the files in a given directory.
The only time you would use “win” is if you have something like Windows 3.1 installed. At that point, you would browse to the windows directory and simply type “win” and hit enter to start windows. Either way, if there is a setup.exe file in the directory, simply typing in setup.exe and hitting enter should start setup.
When I do these steps exactly, Dosbox responds “This program requires Microsoft Windows.”
What do I do???
https://www.freezenet.ca/guides/compatibility-and-emulation/how-to-play-16-bit-windows-gamesapplications-on-a-64-bit-computer/
Thanks for providing the online. Every thing went find until when I try to execute the .exe file ..I am getting message :This program cannot be run in dos mode”. Any solution to this?
https://www.freezenet.ca/guides/compatibility-and-emulation/how-to-play-16-bit-windows-gamesapplications-on-a-64-bit-computer/
my game is need for speed 2 se and it says that it works on 16 bit, but when I followed the instructions, it says that the program cannot be run in dos mode
Brilliant guide, it’s working so well on Windows 10! The game I’m playing, [name removed], won’t allow me to save my game. Any ideas as to why that might be?
Cheers!
Glad you found this guide useful and it’s great to hear that this works on Windows 10 as well!
I’ve noticed this bug myself on a few games where saving is seemingly not functional (where you hit save and nothing appears in a save menu). The advice I’ve read on this is that the game has to “install” first, but I can’t confirm that this is a working solution. Wish I could help you further on that, but this is something I couldn’t actually figure out myself.
i was using employee expiry record software in Dos 16 bits. Since i have upgraded my computer to windows 10 it is not working. please send me patch
Don’t think I can help you there.
A dosbox website stated that my 16 bit program(ATP Transport Pilot) is not compatible with Dosbox. Do I have any options?
You could try a virtual machine.
this screen showed up, (emulated)
ERROR:
Unable to find WARCRAFT II data file ‘data\maindat.war’
The file ‘war2.ini’ contains the ‘CDPATH’ to your CD-ROM drive and may need to be modified if your CD-Rom has been reconfigured
Press any key…
whats the problem
You need to edit the war2.ini file to point to the path where that file can be found on your computer. Side note, it probably also needs windows since the ‘ini’ is a Windows 3.1 extension for program instructions.
My windows opened and my game installed. It said installation successful but when I double click the icon it says ERROR Could not execute the external progam /.
Are your running the .exe via DosBox or are you just browsing to it outside of Dosbox and double-clicking it? If the latter, you’ll have to navigate to the directory and run the .exe via Dosbox. If the former, try checking the compatibility list here to see if it’s compatible (you can read comments if you find the game in the list to see if others are running into the problem). The site also has a forum that may prove useful.
Hope that helps!
Drew, thanks for getting back to me.
I am realizing I posted on the wrong part. I had to download Windows 3.1 so I followed
https://www.freezenet.ca/guides/compatibility-and-emulation/how-to-play-16-bit-windows-gamesapplications-on-a-64-bit-computer/
That being said, it is installed and the icon is there. When I double click it, that is when I get the error. I tried not using the icon and going through file manager, same error. The game is Reader Rabbit Kindergarten. I see Reader Rabbit is supported through the link you gave me.
Thanks again
I also downloaded a new zip thinking maybe something was missing – to no avail.
The only thing I can think of at this point is that the directory name needs to be names in a specific manner. Some games just mysteriously get error messages for no reason until it is installed in a folder with a particularly abbreviated name.
The only other thing I can think of is the audio configuration in Windows itself, but that typically gives error message specific to midi or sound output. As long as you can get sound in Windows, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Beyond that, the only other advice I can give is giving this forum a try (search first, if nothing, then try posting your question).
I wish I could help further, but there’s a good possibility you are running into a problem I have yet to encounter in my testing.
Thanks again, Drew. I will keep trying and update if I figure it out.
Cool! You’re welcome.
thank you.very helpful for me.
I always get the message “Unable to change to: C:\[folders name]. I have checked every command 1000 times and cannot find what i have done wrong. Please help
Was the folder in question created? The command “dir” might be useful here. If you don’t see it there, then you’ll have to create the folder in question.
I get all the way to launching the .exe for the install of the game i want to play and it says this program can’t be run in dos. please help.
It might need Windows to run. Try following this guide if that’s the case: https://www.freezenet.ca/guides/compatibility-and-emulation/how-to-play-16-bit-windows-gamesapplications-on-a-64-bit-computer/
Hi Mike,
I successfully reached your midway of step 4 of cd to the oldgame folder. I don’t know which is the .exe file. The game is hasbro scrabble for windows 95 and 98. My mother is 93 and loves playing the game. Since she upgraded to xp and 7 in 2015 or so I have not been able to get the game to work. I thought this time I could get it to work. But I get the error message “this program cannot be run in DOS mode”. Also during the steps I clicked on something and the game began to open and work, asking configuration questions etc but it suddenly closed. Can you help me?
Heheh, no worries about the name. I’ve never tested that game, but I know that if you open the directory from the game in DOSBox, you’ll be able to either type in “dir” (no quotes) and hit enter to get a list of the files in the folder, or you can simply browse to it on the Windows 7 machine and figure out what the executable is. Typically, it’s an abbreviated version of the games name with “.exe”.
When you were able to open something and get the configuration, it sounds like you stumbled onto the config file. Typically when you open that, you’ll be able to adjust the configuration options. All the configs I’ve run across have an option to save and run, but I could be wrong on that.
As for the error message, it’s possible that you’ll need the Windows environment to run that game. It’s possible this might not work given the wording “for windows 95 and 98”, but if you track down Windows 3.1, you’ll be able to work your way through this guide to set things up: https://www.freezenet.ca/guides/compatibility-and-emulation/how-to-play-16-bit-windows-gamesapplications-on-a-64-bit-computer/
That, of course, is entirely dependent on whether it is compatible with Windows 3.1. If it’s compatible, you’ll have to boot the program from Windows 3.1 (which is necessary for some games I’ve tested).
Failing this, I’ve heard it being possible to run Windows 95 through DosBox. In fact, you can see activity surrounding this on the official compatibility page here where people discuss running that: https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=3120&letter=W
Keep in mind that I’ve never tested Windows 95 through DosBox, so I my ability to help would be very limited in that case. hopefully, though, some of this is useful though!
Good luck!
🙂
Sorry I called you Mike! Your name is Drew. Thanks.
When I change directory it shows unable to change
I manage to get all the way to the point of typing in the exe file and then when I press enter it says ‘Illegal command: LEGOLAND.exe’
What should I do?
While at that point, does it still say Z:/? If so, you’ll need to switch to the mounted C drive (or whatever mounted drive the exe is going to be located) at some point before executing the exe file. To switch to the C drive, type in C: and hit enter. You should see the file path you are in. At that point, try running the exe file. It should work.