Wing Commander II & II DosBox

J

JPINSA

Guest
I recently picked up these two titles at a second hand shop, but am having a lot of trouble getting them to work in dosbox. I am not a pc guru so please bear with me. My first guess is that you have to unpack the data before running the game via the installer. I have tried doing this from the cd-rom drive and from a local drive, but no luck.

I mount my drive "mount c: c:\oldgames\wingcommander\origin\wc (install.exe is in this folder)
it mounts and I type install and I go through the install process until it asks if my configuration is correct to which I answer Y. It then just hangs on a page with a message saying "copy from which drive?" but I can't enter anything in!

I've tried directly running files directly without running the installer like wc.exe and nothing happens. The file hiearchy on the cd-rom is as follows:

ORIGIN <DIR>
ORIGIN.BAT

*note: all folders and files in origin dir
WC <DIR>
CDGAMES.EXE
CDGAMES.PAC
COPYRIT.SCR
T.EXE
VERSION.LST

*note: all folders and files in wc dir
GAMEDAT <DIR>
INSTALL.EXE
SM2.EXE
TRANS2.EXE
TRANSFER.EXE
WC.EXE

*note: then a lot of data files inside gamedat dir



I have tried directly running wc.exe (it worked once with no sound) as well as origin.bat (which asked to create a disk but only gave me an option of A: or B:, neither which exist on my PC).

I would greatly appreciate anybody's help on this. I should mention that it is Wing Commander 1 Deluxe edition including the Secret Missions.

Thanks
 
What would be the best solution for you:


Easiest:
Download and install D-fend Reloaded; http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/ This adds a graphical shell to dosbox.
Start it up, go to profiles, select "install from source media", and browse to the WC directory on your CD(I never tested this with the CD version) But D-fend will recognize wing commander through install.exe or wc.exe, help you through the installation, and set up everything for you. Now on the upper right field "Wing Commander" will be recognized as a game and you can start it from there, without any hassle.

Most reliable and oldschool way:
using windows explorer, create a folder "wing" in your dosgames folder(I simply use a directory named DOS on my C-drive
(So now you have C:\dos\wing\ )
Copy all the files and subdirectories from the CD's "WC" Directory into C:\dos\wing. Then select all files in that directory, rightclick, check the properties, and make sure you deselect "Read only". Do thesame for the files in the gamedat folder.

Start Dosbox, at the command prompt type "mount c: c:\dosbox" Now Dosbox gives you a driveletter C: if you type in "dir" and hit return/enter key
you should see a directory "wing", type "cd wing"(hit return/enter), next key in "install"(R/E). Now you can select a soundcard, choose soundblaster, let the default settings be, and save and exit.

Key in "wing"(R/E) , and have fun!
 
What would be the best solution for you:


Easiest:
Download and install D-fend Reloaded; http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/ This adds a graphical shell to dosbox.
Start it up, go to profiles, select "install from source media", and browse to the WC directory on your CD(I never tested this with the CD version) But D-fend will recognize wing commander through install.exe or wc.exe, help you through the installation, and set up everything for you. Now on the upper right field "Wing Commander" will be recognized as a game and you can start it from there, without any hassle.

Most reliable and oldschool way:
using windows explorer, create a folder "wing" in your dosgames folder(I simply use a directory named DOS on my C-drive
(So now you have C:\dos\wing\ )
Copy all the files and subdirectories from the CD's "WC" Directory into C:\dos\wing. Then select all files in that directory, rightclick, check the properties, and make sure you deselect "Read only". Do thesame for the files in the gamedat folder.

Start Dosbox, at the command prompt type "mount c: c:\dosbox" Now Dosbox gives you a driveletter C: if you type in "dir" and hit return/enter key
you should see a directory "wing", type "cd wing"(hit return/enter), next key in "install"(R/E). Now you can select a soundcard, choose soundblaster, let the default settings be, and save and exit.

Key in "wing"(R/E) , and have fun!

when i type in "mount c: c:\dosbox" it tells me that the directory does not exist, should I have a dir called dosbox on my c: thanks
 
when i type in "mount c: c:\dosbox" it tells me that the directory does not exist, should I have a dir called dosbox on my c: thanks

ok figured out that I need to selct the folder with all my dos games. I'm still getting the same problem though. After I've chosen all the settings in the install, it asks me if everything is correct and I choose Y. then it satays on a page saying "copying game pleas wait..." but there is a red block in the middle which says "copy from which drive?" and it never does anything after that.
 
If this is the cd version of the game then don't bother with the installers in the root directory... For WC2 for example just copy the Wing2 directory to the harddrive and run winstall to setup the sound. It shouldn't ask you for any disks.
 
OK I got it working, here's what you do just to make sure everyone understands:

If you have an image or copy of the CD for Wing Commander 2 then copy the content to a space on your computer in a designated Dosbox Folder, best thing to do is to place it in a folder labeled Wing2 IMO. Load up Dosbox and mount the folder (for me it was C:\Games) as your C Drive. Type cd wing2 twice then type Winstall. If you want high quality sound then select the Soundblaster and all default options. Once the setup is finishes type either wc2 so1 or so2 to play any of the three games

Hope that's instructive enough for anyone else with this problem
 
^ Thanks for coming back and sharing the solution, many do not, your post will one day be found via somebody Googling the same problem.
 
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