New to DOS Box and have questions

The Game Room
1

I have recently been yearning to play games of my younger years, most notably SimCity 2000. I have DOS Box downloaded and installed, and DOS Box seems to be running just fine. (I have Vista as an operating system. I know, make jokes about Vista somewhere else, though.)

I tried downloading some versions of SimCity 2000, but I keep getting error messages once DOS Box loads. The files are usually .rar (I have no idea what that means).

Basically, I’m not sure what I need to do to play this game. I’d rather not have to hunt for a CD version of the game (and if I find one, how do I get it to play?). How can I get a DOS game to play on Vista? What should I do? Where should I go?

2

.rar is an archive format, like .zip. You need to unrar it - winzip and winrar are both freeware programs to do so.

You don’t NEED a frontend for DOSbox, but it makes things a LOT easier - D-Fend Reloaded is the one I use, and it’s very simple.

Once you’ve got the .rar unpacked and game installed, DOSbox via D-Fend can set up a shortcut to run the game under whatever conditions it requires.

3

winzip and winrar are both nagware programs, though you can use them without paying. 7zip is freeware and does the same job.

4

Right, I misspoke, they’re not freeware, just free.

5

With the knowledge of DOS you seem to be professing, I’d say the front-ends would probably make Dosbox more useful for you.

Personally, I liked the whole DOS experience, and like having to “cd” to the directory and run it on my own.