# DOS, VMWare and CDROMs

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 25, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391 "2003-02-25T14:15:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391/1 "2003-02-25T14:15:14Z")

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OK, here is the deal. I want to run an old DOS game - Transport tycoon (not the Win95 version). It will not, under any circumstances run on WinXP. My first thought was to try it under WINE in RedHat - no go. Hmm.  
OK, I dug out my DOS 6.22 disks, and installed it under VMWare. But, can anyone think of a way to get the CDROM drive working in this virtual machine. Nothing I have tried so far seems to help.  
At this point I am considering making a FAT(16) partition - ugh…YAPAOSWYAIATG (Yet Another Partition And Operating System With Yet Another Item Added To Grub - sorry I just had to do that). But I would rather just get the CDROM working in the VMWare install?  
Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391/2 "2003-02-25T14:51:29Z")

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check out [bootdisk.com](http://www.bootdisk.com/readme.htm#cdromdos)

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**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391/3 "2003-02-25T16:31:57Z")

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Or [dosemu](http://www.dosemu.org/). That should work with your existing Red Hat setup.

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**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391/4 "2003-02-25T16:41:33Z")

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Ah…the dosemu…thankies…I tried the stuff from [bootdisk.com](http://bootdisk.com) to no avail, but not dosemu. I will give that a go 🙂 Wish WINE supported it but n’er mind

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**Author:** ![JohanDane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@JohanDane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohanDane)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dos-vmware-and-cdroms/157391/5 "2003-02-25T17:58:17Z")

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You should be able to assign CD access to your VMWare virtual machine. Then you would have to modify the autoexec.bat (I think) or maybe the config.sys file (cannot remember which one) and add some line that configures the CD ROM drive. Sorry I couldn’t be more specific but it’s been a long time since I’ve had to configure DOS.

Actually I just found a web site with helpful instructions:  
[http://www.powerload.fsnet.co.uk/cdrom.htm](http://www.powerload.fsnet.co.uk/cdrom.htm)