I downloaded an old game from The Underdogs, and it won’t seem to run. The filetype is .BAT I think. Whenever I open a file at that type, a DOS window opens, and then closes immediately. Does anyone know what the problem is? I use windows XP.
(It’s one of the old Discworld games, if that helps…there were no problems that I could see in the installation.)
Most old DOS programs don’t run with XP, so it seems you’re out of luck =/
Windows XP doesn’t come with DOS. That thing you see is just a DOS emulator, which does not have all of its features.
If you are really desperate, you could install Win98 in a separate partition.
I tried tinkering with this setting called “Compatibility Mode”, whitch is SUPPOSED to let me run [programs for older versions of windows…and a DOS window DOES open, but like I said, it closes a second after. (Literaly.)
A .bat is a quick executable shortcut, it opens, displays an error message most likely and then closes. You’d need to run a command prompt window for the message to stay and then read it, or you can use a dos emulator
A friend of mine dropped by for an unexpected visit last night, and this morning he got it running for me. 'Tis a nifty little game.
Thanks a lot anyway.
How crazy is it that microsoft can’t even emulate their own system properly…
Zero, I love you.
Vorpy: it’s not that they failed emulating it properly, it’s just that in Xp you can use only DOS most basic functions. The parts Microsoft took off from their own emulator only served to play DOS games, anyway.