Discs and Windows

Discs & Windows

DOSBox Pure can mount CD images and even install and boot a full Windows 9x. EmuDOS drives both.

CD games

Drop a .iso, .cue/.bin, or .chd and EmuDOS imports it as a CD game, mounting the disc as a CD-ROM on launch. Run the disc's installer (SETUP or INSTALL); the game installs onto a writable C: drive, and from then on it launches into the installed program.

Non-bootable preservation rips and UDF images can't be read by the DOS emulator — EmuDOS warns you on import if a disc isn't a standard ISO9660 CD. For a UDF rip, extract its files and use Add disc from folder… (below) to build a readable ISO9660 image.

Multi-disc games

Select a game's discs (e.g. Game (Disc 1).iso and Game (Disc 2).iso) and drop them together. EmuDOS groups them by their disc-marker-stripped name and imports them as a single gamebox with every disc attached. To attach more discs to an existing game later, right-click → Add disc… (multi-select, parses a .cue for its .bin tracks) or Add disc from folder… (builds an ISO9660 image from a folder of files).

All of a game's discs are listed in a generated .m3u8 playlist, so the core mounts the first and keeps the rest available in its swap list.

Swapping discs while playing

When a game or installer asks for another disc, you don't restart:

1. Press the menu key (default F10) to open DOSBox Pure's on-screen menu.
2. Pick the disc you want — it swaps in automatically. There's no need to eject first.

F10 is rebindable in Preferences → Hotkeys. The same flow works inside a booted Windows OS.

Installing and booting Windows 9x (advanced)

DOSBox Pure can install a real Windows 9x to a virtual hard disk and boot it. With a genuinely bootable Windows install CD image:

1. Launch it and choose [ Boot and Install New Operating System ] from the start menu.
2. Pick a hard-disk size and install Windows. The installed disk persists.
3. Afterward, loading content offers [ Run Installed Operating System ], which boots your C: with the loaded content as a CD-ROM.

You can then add Windows game CDs (right-click → Add disc…) and run them inside Windows; mount every disc a game needs before launching, then press F10 in Windows to swap between them.

Notes & gotchas

• This needs a genuinely bootable install image (one with an El Torito boot record). A data-only rip won't offer the install option.
• The installed-OS hard disk is detected from the System folder. Keep only one Windows hard-disk image there — a second (e.g. a leftover backup .img) makes the emulator present two hard disks, which can stop Windows from recognizing the CD-ROM drive at all.
• A booted OS is more demanding than plain DOS; expect larger save states (see Save States) and use a real ISO9660/bootable image.