I run Vista.

I haven't noticed any stability issues in Vista with DosBox compared to any other OS.

I've got 32bit and 64bit machines with OS's loaded so if you have some specific scenario then run it by me.

I've been playing around with 32bit Vista mostly when I test DosBox.

I also run 32bit Vista.

I haven't noticed any issues either, but I'll help in any way that I can.

I can boot in to 32 or 64 bit Vista on the same machine that I boot 32 bit XP, all with Visual Studio installed btw (if you need a debugger).

While I don't usually run DOSbox in Vista, I have many times, and just did now against a set of games with no problems. If there's a specific game you want me to check out let me know.

-Frob

It was me who had some instability. Identical dosbox.conf files would make 0.71 crash yet make 0.70 run perfectly. I use max cycles and openglnb as output mode.

I never use OpenGL with DosBox here in Windows. (Mostly just use suface\overlay)

I guess I could try it on this POS 915 and 945gm video chipset (Intel Extreme). (What I primarily have been using for DosBox testing)

I do have a Geforce 7900 in my work computer which is running Vista 64bit.

I also have a Geforce 8800GTS in my home computer which has Vista 64bit on it but I never use it and just boot into 2003. Vista constanty like to reset my activation when I test memory so I said screw it and just use 2003. Probably going to try the activation workaround on it later this week.

Under Vista, I mounted D as D:\, and then went to D:\GAME\DOS\CDMAN to play a game named CD-MAN. btw, it did not work because there is no right to write on the directory. It means that it requires an administrative right.
I also tried to mount D as D:\GAME\DOS\CDMAN, but it still did not work.

dosbox_admin.exe (attached below) will provide an administrative privilege to dosbox.exe.

So how does this .exe work? For DosBox in Vista I usually either right-click and choose run as admin (you can even save it....not recommended) or I change the rights on the folder itself.

The dosbox_admin.exe should be in the same directory where dosbox.exe exists. If then, it will run dosbox as admin.
Of course, as you said, to right click a shortcut for the dosbox.exe and choose run as an administrator leads to get an admin right.
My point is, however, that many people who use winvista still do not know how to get an admin right. The dosbox_admin.exe will help them to easily get the privilege so that they will not encounter any problem related to write-mode due to non-existence of admin right with playing their favorite games.
If you see a novice who uses vista and gets a message like write-protection, you may just say "try to run dosbox_admin.exe instead of dosbox.exe and see if it works fine"

I got that turned on by default because it caused major problems otherwise. Grand Theft Auto Vice City for example would fail to run because for some reason, it wouldn't have access to the savegames.

I don't like the idea of assigning admin rights, or meddling with folder rights now that Microsoft finally is trying to tighten up security in Windows.

Is there a problem if people keep their DOSBox drives inside their %AppData% or My Documents folder?? Isn't that what we want Joe Average User to do?

Do we have a problem with where the dosbox.conf file is installed in Vista? It should go in the %AppData% folder, right?

I can see a need for assigning admin rights to a game like GTAVC if it insists on placing savegames in the %ProgramFiles% folder, but that is an ugly work-around for a problem in the application. Not something we would want to recommend for DOSBox.

I'm not very familiar with VISTA. but if we need to move the configfile to a different place, then I'm open for suggestions.

I haven't even seen a Vista install 😀 Coming from a Unix background, I have always considered /bin and %ProgramFiles% off-limits for ordinary users.

Diskless workstations typically mounted /bin from a shared NFS-server which would convert all access by the local root account to nobody on the NFS-server, effectively making /bin read-only.

It is my understanding that Microsoft is trying to do something similar in Vista, but they have to allow for legacy programs that will scribble all over %ProgramFiles%. What Vista does(?), is that it fakes access to %ProgramFiles% by creating user-specific folders (much like the Zip-support in DOSBox?) and redirect the read/writes there and falls back on the real %ProgramFiles% if the file/folder-name is not found in the faked %ProgramFiles% folder. Pretty neat I think.

On my Vista 64bit computer %ALLUSERSPROFILE%=C:\ProgramData
On XP 32bit %ALLUSERSPROFILE%=C:\Documents and Settings\All Users

I think if you just use "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data", then Vista will automagically redirect it where it needs to go (C:\ProgramData)

Of course problem is these folders are only visible when hidden files is turned off and they are not very accessible anyways.

I think considering all of the Windows OS's that DosBox supports that it would just be easiest to assign DosBox to "c:\DosBox" and then either include instructions for modifying access rights and inheritence or having DosBox do it automagically via a checkbox.

Found this on the scummvm forums:

8.0) Configuration file: ---- ------------------- By default, the configuration file is saved in, and loaded from: […]
Show full quote

8.0) Configuration file:
---- -------------------
By default, the configuration file is saved in, and loaded from:

Windows Vista:
\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\ScummVM\scummvm.ini,

Windows 2000/XP:
\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ScummVM\scummvm.ini,

I don't remember where scummvm saves it's games. If it's in the game directory then the directory permissions still need to be changed or the program needs to be runas admin.

'APPDATA' is an environment variable that will point to: C:\Users\'Username'\AppData\Roaming

'LOCALAPPDATA' is an environment variable that will point to: C:\Users\'Username'\AppData\Local

Any output from DOSBox (screenshots, videos, etc.) should be targeted to one of the above locations. The selection of one will depend on whether it's meaningful to support roaming profiles... probably not for a game as roaming profiles are more for shared PC usage in office environments and therefore unlikely to be used at home.

Inputs for DOSBox could come from the same location and/or use 'PUBLIC' or even 'ProgramData', both with \DOSBox sub folders as an initial source then perhaps override with user specific configs... I'm not suggesting features however 😀

DosFreak wrote:

Of course problem is these folders are only visible when hidden files is turned off and they are not very accessible anyways.

Visibility should not be a problem if the installer created a (Notepad) shortcut to dosbox.conf in the Programs menu.

Reckless wrote:

'APPDATA' is an environment variable that will point to: C:\Users\'Username'\AppData\Roaming

'LOCALAPPDATA' is an environment variable that will point to: C:\Users\'Username'\AppData\Local

Any output from DOSBox (screenshots, videos, etc.) should be targeted to one of the above locations.

Using %AppData% (local or not) is fine for data that is managed by the application itself. But with DOSBox, users often need to gain access to their screen captures, etc, and then %AppData% is a bad choice because those folders are usually hidden.

I don't see why captures should be treated any different from other user generated and maintained content, so it should go somewhere into the My Documents folder. Now whether it should go in a special My DOSBox folder, or in My Pictures, My Videos or what, I don't know/care.

I'm just thinking of how we explain this to our casual users.....and how we keep it straight from Windows 95-98-NT4-2000-XP-2003-Vista, future windows release.

NT4-2000-XP-2003-Vista should be pretty similar in variables
Hardcoding for 95-98-NT4 is no big deal.

But it is a mess if you have users digging around in hidden folders in their profile.

If screenshots, videos and music are stored in APPDATA then what's an easy way for the user to get at them? A shortcut in the start menu?

In Vista if they click on "Documents" in their Orb Menu and then click on their username they can then click on the hidden folder Appdata.......See what I mean?

Uh oh, looks like we're going to have to go the GUI route. 😉

I run DOSBox 0.7 ykhwong build in Vista x64 Ultimate and it never complained about not being able to write data. Admittedly, my user account does have a password set.

MiniMax wrote:

I don't see why captures should be treated any different from other user generated and maintained content, so it should go somewhere into the My Documents folder. Now whether it should go in a special My DOSBox folder, or in My Pictures, My Videos or what, I don't know/care.

That's a fair point. I personally hate[d] all of the twee 'My' folders under [My] Documents. Even Microsoft have removed the 'My' from these locations for Vista 🤐