Runner 1.0 Error (Windows 3.1 Game)

[Quadko]

I don't know of any tutorials, but other than a little DOS-foo when I messed things up, it was straightforward Win 3.x install. I've still got dos & windows disks, so didn't mind downloading convenient disk images - ima dos floppy and iso win3x cd. You might find VirtualPC guides, and Win 3.x guides, and mabye even a mix of the two together, but it was straightforward.

here's what I did:

1. setup a VirtualPC little box - 200mb hard drive, 16mb ram, cd drive. (I think I chose "XP" base config - whatever was smallest.)
2. Attach a Dos 6.22 .img boot disk image to VirtualPC and boot it up.
3. from inside VirtualPC, run fdisk to setup the c: drive and reboot (to floppy)
4. format the c: drive and install dos (either as format param, or sys c: command after formatted)
5. copy the floppy to the hard drive and detach the image from VirtualPC
6. Attach the Win 3.1 iso cd image to VirtualPC
7. Reboot - should boot to dos off the hard drive with win3x in CD drive
8. run the Win 3.1 setup off the cd, good to go after it completes and a reboot. Don't need the cd any more. cd windows then win

and
9. Use WinImage to create an .ima floppy image with the Runner files. Or an .iso cd image creator to create CDs, whatever.
10. Attach the floppy and copy the files using Win 3.1

The Dos 6.22 image I use has a generic CD driver on it that works for most real and all virtual drives I've tried, so the CD just works out of the box - If you look in config.sys & autoexec.bat and see mscdex and bananna name, that's probably the common one that's been floating around forever. This one made the CD the R: drive.

edit: VirtualPC accepts both img and ima floppy images, updated with correct details. Just no .vfd or .imz, as far as I know.
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Win95 boot CD might take care of all this, if you'd rather. I had minor problems with Win 3.1 not wanting to overwrite autoexec.bat & command.com, so I had to copy them manually. Then it said HIMEM wasn't installed - Himem.sys needed the c:\windows\ path specified in config.sys. And then it worked.

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On DirectX, I think the "video card" emulated either isn't that great, or the emulation speed isn't really tuned for games. Works great for GUI, but 3D, not so much. But there are drivers and it will work, just not the bestest fastest '9x videocard you've ever seen.

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I'll probably work a little more on understanding why Runner has trouble in dosbox and the file format, but best case it won't be soon and it's unlikely there'd be a patch, just a "when this is finally fixed" theory.

[Hennie]

Alright, the process seems familiar enough, had to use similar .IMG and .ISO files for my Windows OS setups in DOSBox. All the necessary files are downloaded onto my laptop, just need to find some time for setting it up. Also have a couple of guides ready, after a simple Google search, there's lots of help online.

I intend to try VirtualPC for both 3.11 and 95, so will communicate my findings once I've tested Runner for each.

Good luck on your side, will see you around. Thanks for all your help!