Windows 7: Virtual Machine & DOS 6.22

Hi,

I'm running Win 7 Pro x64 and I have XP Mode installed.

Is it possible to create another virtual machine on my system that would be running DOS 6.22?

How many virtual machines can you install on a system.

I see a virtual machine directory with a Windows XP Mode entry. I get the impression that it's possible to create several virtual machines running different operating systems. I've got the old operating systems on their original distribution media.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards

The short answer is yes, you can create additional virtual machines. You can create as many virtual machine's as you have disk space to hold them. You can only run as many at one time as you have RAM to support them.

The long story is that you can create an additional virtual machine by going to Start->All Programs->Windows Virtual PC->Windows Virtual PC (or navigate to \Users\<username>\Virtual Machines). At the top of the Explorer window you will see the option "Create virtual machine". Click on that option and create one.

In order to create a DOS 6.22 machine, you will need a floppy drive and a bootable copy of DOS 6.22. When you power up the virtual machine you will need to tap the DEL key to enter the BIOS and set the boot order so that the VM boots from the DOS floppy disk. Once DOS is booted you can then run fdisk to create a partition on the VM's hdd, then format it it with the /s parameter. Once format is complete, then you can copy all of the files from the DOS diskette to your new VM's hdd.

Not sure what you are wanting to do with a VM with DOS on it but if you want to play DOS games and such, you are probably better off installing DOSBox.

Additionally, there are other virtual environments such as VirtualBox and VMWare Player that offer much better support for other OSes such as DOS. MS Virtual PC only "officially" supports XP, Vista and Win 7 as guest OSes running in the VM. I actually have a VM with DOS 6.22 running in VMWare Player so I know it's possible there.

Thanks for that information.

I created a VM with 4MB memory and a 40MB Harddisk, but now I've got to figure out how to install DOS 6.22 from floppies to the vhd.

I found an ISO boot disk that works here: http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html
I was able to create a VM using that disk to boot with. It does not contain all of the files for DOS 6.22 but enough for you to create the VM.

Thanks.

I may be able to use that as a start, then install from my floppies.

Did you have to burn the ISO to a CD to install on the vhd?

I'm not able to get the Integration Feature available. It may be a what comes first issue. The bootable vhd or the integration features.

Regards

No need to burn iso to cd, you can point the virtual DVD drive to the iso and use it directly.

Thanks again.

I figured that out and used a DOS 6.22 boot disk ISO, but wasn't able to get access to the hard disk.

I think downloaded DOS 7.1 complete ISO and was able to boot and install on a C: drive.

I haven't figured out how enable the integration features and I get errors of "stack overflow."

Regards

I doubt you would be able to get the integration features to work to share resources between Win 7 and a DOS VM. You will need to use a floppy or a CD to be able to transfer things between the DOS VM and your Win 7 computer.

What exactly are you wanting to do with the DOS VM?

VirtualPC integration components are available only for specific client operating systems. I believe that for Windows only XP and later are supported. DOS operating systems probably never were.

Edit: You should understand that DOS 6.22 supports FAT 16 only while DOS 7.1 supports FAT 16 and FAT 32. No version of DOS has ever supported NTFS. Your virtual machine will have no access to the host hard drive unless you set up the OS for network access and doing that in DOS is not simple.

Access to the USB Floppy is my main issue. From what I can see, without reading all the help information, I need the integration features to get access to the A:\ drive.


I've got a lot of old data files on 3.5" and 5.25" floppies from the early 1990s as well as programs. I've got several versions of DOS on original floppies. DOS 6.22 is the last version I have before Win 3.1. I don't even remember what's in those data files. If it was possible to load a DOS VM and get access to those files, it would be interesting. It's also fun to explore what the Win 7 Pro system can do. When I noticed how Win 7 Pro XP Mode was implemented, I thought it would be interesting to try with older OSs. Because I've got the unused disk space, I was thinking about creating a VM for Win 3.1, Win 95, Win 98, etc.... It's just something to try and play with.