How to get Master of Orion II (MOO2) to work on a Windows 7 Home Premi
I installed the game from the original disk, labeled Master of Orion II, Battle of Antares. The disk contains both Dos and Windows 95 Versions. I assumed the windows version would be easier to install onto my current Windows system, but no ‘compatibility’ setting adjustment (accessed by right clicking on the executable) would ever work. I did, however, get the DOS version to work.
MOO2 CD Contents
Directories: DIRECTX, FUNSTUFF & TEN
Files on the root: Too many to list BUT it includes the following very important files.
• ORION95.EXE – Installs Windows Version (Error message = Program cannot start because display.dll is missing).
• INSTALL.EXE – Dos Install
• ORION2.EXE – Dos Launch.
STEP 1.
Create the following directory on your computer’s hard drive.
• C:\oldgames
STEP 2.
Copy the entire CD into the ‘oldgames, directory. Note that the directory name is only 8 characters long – which happens to be the dos filename limit.
This is done because the game, when started, requires the original CD in the CD drive. It will always ‘look’ for it and return an error message if the CD was not found. By copying all the files onto the hard drive and installing the game from there, the game will look THERE for verification and find it. This also sidesteps trying to make your modern CD drive and drivers, Dos compatible.
STEP 3.
Download and install DosBox (
DOSBox, an x86 emulator with DOS). Click downloads at the top menu, then Download now. I downloaded Version 0.74. It installs by default in C:\Program Files (x86)\DosBox-0.74
STEP 4.
Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\DosBox-0.74 and double click on DOSBox.exe to install the program. Note also that the DOSBox manual is located here as well. If you want to ‘fine tune’ the setup, begin here. Two windows open, one on top of the other. Pull one down to reveal the second. They are the DOSBOX Status Window and the DOSBox Window.
• DOSBox Status Window – Shows the result of opening the DOS emulator and running the default configuration file. WRITE DOWN the entire path for the file created. You will need this later. It is the batch file that you must edit later. My file path was: C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Local\DOSBOox\dosbox-0.74.conf
• DOSBox Window (Will nickname this the Z Box) – Shows the Z prompt. This window is your active DOS emulator. Ultimately, we will get MOO2 up and running inside of it. For the heck of it, type DIR and enter. This is a listing of DOS commands now available to the DOS emulator.
STEP 5.
• Click inside of the Z Box and at the Z:\> prompt, type Mount C C:\oldgames and press enter. The response will be: Drive C is mounted as local directory c:\oldgames\
• Type C: and press enter. The result will be the Z prompt has changed to a C prompt. At the C prompt type INSTALL and enter. You are now INSTALLING the dos MOO2 program and are using dos to do so! You should now see the MOO2 dos installation program!
• At the very bottom, erase C:\MPS\ORION2 and replace it with C:\oldgames We are sticking EVERYTHING into this one directory. Press enter and the installation will begin.
• The SOUND must now be configured. A new window opened. The Pink Box at the top lists your current sound configuration, which is currently NONE for both types of sound. The Blue Box beneath, provides options for configuring sounds. The top item is highlighted which is our beginning point. Double click on Select and Configure MIDI Music Driver. What worked for me (your system may be different) is to highlight Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro (new version) and hit the SELECT button. In the new window, double click on the top line Attempt to Configure Sound Driver Automatically. Great! Device detected successfully! Select OK and we repeat these steps for the next sound driver.
• Select and Configure Digital Audio Driver
• Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 or AWE 32
• Select
• Attempt to Configure Sound Drive Automatically
• Device Detected Successfully!
• OK
• Done
Step 6.
As prompted, type ORION2 to run the game! Click on QUIT GAME to close it.
Step 7.
• Now, let’s CONFIGURE the startup batch file to start this game without all this typing! First, the DOSBox Icon was supposed to be placed on your desktop. It wasn’t. Open your start menu, locate the icon and drag it to your desktop and Create Shortcut Here . This will be your MOO2 Startup Icon from now on. Don’t try to change the name. Bad things happen.
• In Step 4, DOSBox created a startup batch file. It is in a dos ascii file format. Ascii is a very ‘clean’ format. It has no paragraph formatting whatsoever. It requires a special ascii editor to work with and save this type of file. To open a special ascii editor, hit START and type CMD (enter). A window opens. At the command prompt type NOTEPAD (enter).
• In windows NOTEPAD, hit FILE, OPEN and now go open the batch file created in Step 4. In my system, the file was located at: C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Local\DOSBOox\dosbox-0.74.conf But wait! Once you have followed the path and have opened the last directory (DOSBox), the file will not be there. The directory is empty! No it isn’t. Go to the bottom right and click on the TEXT DOCUMENTS box. Select ALL FILES. Now, the file you want appears! Single click that file. At the bottom left, the filename of DOSBOX-0.74.CONF appears. Click inside that box and put quotation marks around the filename. It should look like “dosbox-0.74.conf” It is very important to open it in this manner so that is will SAVE as an ascii file and not as a text file.
• A very long ascii configuration file will open. Scroll to the very bottom and alter it as follows (highlighted bold is what to add):
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount C C:\oldgames
C:
cd \oldgames
cls
orion2
exit
Then, SAVE the file. Do not SAVE AS or it will default to a text file. Now, MOO2 will open each time you double click the DOSBox Icon on your desktop! And it will close easily as well! Yay!
Searching the web yielded several alterations to the configuration file that claimed to expand the dosbox size. But problems were noted. If you want to experiment with changing those settings then have at it. Have fun. And I hope that you are successful and post the correction as well! I did my part! This was always my favorite game. I even won one on the impossible setting! I bet you can too!
all setup for newer pc's (integrated DOS BOX into game)
