virtualbox.org

Hello,
Forgive me for my lack of computer knowledge. I have Virtualbox installed and it is running Windows 3.1. I have a legacy .exe file (game) that I need to run from my Downloads folder on my computer. How can I do this? When I click "Install guest additions," nothing happens. What do I do? Thanks for your help here.

nick

There are no guest additions for Windows 3.1

My computer is running Windows 7, but I have a 3.1 virtualbox. Is there any way to run a legacy 16-bit game (.exe and .vbx) on Virtualbox? If not, do you know of any other software that I can use to run the game?

Sorry I don't do games. Maybe someone that does will drop by, but I do know that Virtual Machines aren't the best to play games in from what I read.
The trick will be to get it working with the bare minimum video drivers, and being able to get the software into the guest since there are no guest additions.

chefdecouscous wrote:I have Virtualbox installed and it is running Windows 3.1. I have a legacy .exe file (game) that I need to run from my Downloads folder on my computer. How can I do this? When I click "Install guest additions," nothing happens.

Guest additions do not exist for any of the DOS based Windows versions, only the NT based versions (starting with NT4 SP6) have guest additions support.

Lacking guest support means that there is no easy shared folders (no easy access to your host Downloads folder), and no accelerated graphics.

I think Windows 3.1 also predates data CD support (first implemented for Win95 IIRC).

If you actually have "Windows for Workgroups" 3.1 then you might stand a chance of getting network shared folders working, you would have to Google for info on configuring that (the solution is not unique to VMs). Otherwise the only way to get data into the VM is via floppy images, or maybe FTP (another Google task).

mpack wrote:I think Windows 3.1 also predates data CD support (first implemented for Win95 IIRC).

Not even close. DOS was one of the first operating systems to support CD-ROMs. Data CD support has been there since around 1988 (MSCDEX + device-specific driver). That's of course available in Windows 3.x as well.

"do you know of any other software that I can use to run the game?"
Maybe Dosbox? (http://www.dosbox.com/)