Diablo 1 IPX LAN game... What OS and how to do it?

[z1411]

First off, Im completely new to this vitualbox thing... Ive been trying to do something for quite some time, and thought that I might be able to use this to do it. So explaining things to me like Im a four year old would be really helpful and appreciated.

Heres the deal... I love my classic games... Ive been trying for some time to get a LAN game of diablo 1 going, but due to my OS, Vista, not supporting IPX, and Diablo only having IPX, I was sort of out of luck. Dell refused me a decent computer with XP on it, and it wont let me wipe Vista off it and put XP onto it... (If anyone knows how to actually do this with a XPS M1530, Id love to hear it... The technician said that they set up the computers so that you cant put other OS's on them... I thought that was a load of crap until I tried...) I found some thing online that you could install into Vista that apparently let you use IPX for some games, but it didnt work for Diablo 1... So this was my new idea...

I figured by using VitualBox I could run XP, install Diablo 1, and be able to connect to a IPX game... Since XP actually supports IPX, unlike Vista. First off, if using XP makes it more complicated then using some other OS, Im more then happy to load up another OS... Just say so, Linux, Mac, or some older Windows, I can find it, and I can use it... But Im very familiar with XP, and know it supports IPX, so I figured I would start with that...

So Ive installed XP in a vitual drive (that was one hell of a process in itself... VitualBox kept crashing everytime the XP CD tried to format the HDD [Was I doing something wrong? I ended up using a ISO instead of a CD, and it worked.])... Then I installed Diablo 1... But of course it cant connect to a IPX game, since its going through the weird ass network setup that the vitual machine is using... And I dont understand how it works. I read network portion of the manual, but I dont really get it... Networking isnt my specialty. Im basically wanting to know how to set up the vitual network so that I can connect to a LAN game on the network my host is on. Oh, and if theres a better OS to use to do this, or make it more simple, then Id like to know what that is, and how to use it as well...

My host computer is a XPS M1530, Core Duo 2.6GHz, 4GB ram (only 3.5 is recognized of course), 32 bit Vista.
The virtual thing is set with 1 processor, 1GB ram (it bitches when I set it to 2GB, saying its more then half, only because 3.5 can be recognized... Is there a way to fix that too?)... And more importantly, or so I assume, Im using the standard network settings, 1 adapter, PCnet-Fast III (NAT)... Which I assume Ill have to change... But Ill let you tell me that, heh...

I think thats about it... Let me know if theres any questions or if I need to provide any more details...

[Sasquatch]

Heh, check this out: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=212981 . Google search query: http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... 8&oe=utf-8 . First hit! I find it total bull that you can't install a different OS on a system. What if you don't like Windows and want to use Linux instead? How are you going to refuse the license agreement and demand a refund if you can't even install a different OS? It infuriates me if they actually do things like that. Neelie Kroes, from the European Commission, is the only one that actually does something against those monopoly acts. However, if you don't live in Europe, you're still screwed.

Anyway, VB has some limited support for network protocols other than TCP/IP. So IPX might not even work, no matter if you select Bridged or any other method. NAT does for certain NOT support IPX. So, if you need to get it working, make sure that you use Bridged (in case it does work) and install IPX/SPX in the Guest. You might need to manually install that protocol in the NIC properties.

[vbox4me2]

Go down the VBox 2.2.4 and setup Bridge networking, next add ipx to your Guest, that should do it.

[z1411]

Is there a reason why I should use 2.4.4... And how do I go about adding IPX to the guest?

[vbox4me2]

224 is a more stable version at the moment, add ipx? lan driver -> install -> protocol -> select nwlink ipx....