[MarkShot]

Neal,

I have given up on DOS and VPC for the following reasons:

(1) VPC 2007 does not support DOS. Although I did install DOS under VPC 2007, but I could not get file sharing with the host operating system working.

(2) VPC 2004 does support DOS. It is supposed to be possible to share files with the hosting system. However, I could not get the "additions" to work/load; mean file sharing.

Now, I have seen the "additions" work under Win98 SE and sharing files with the host O/S is just like mapping network drives. It is supposed to be able to work with DOS under VPC 2004 the same way. But I just cannot seem to figure it out. For me, this is a show stopper, since it makes it difficult to manipulate or do anything with your game from the larger Windows environment. Perhaps, someone else knows the answer to this. BB Nuke?

This is one of the nice things about DOSBOX in that it completely uses the NTFS file system for all of its files. This makes configuring, backing up, and manipulating the game files much easier. For example, AOD autosaves every 20 minutes. With DOSBOX, I was able to develop a separate utility running in the background the checkpoints AODs autosaves with filename/timestamp. Thus, I have an AOD environment which I can very easily back track in if as you said if I have a "buggy game issue".

Besides providing a pseudo save game functionality, the other good thing about VPCs simulated file system contained within a virtual hard drive is that you could install the OS and a game. Then, you can distribute the complete package to someone else simply giving them two files presuming that they already have VPC installed.

Oh, well ... Time to get some sleep - 3am here.