• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

This program cannot be run in DOS mode

P

pcm2a

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
190
I've been trying out some ancient games on an old 10mhz laptop with Dos 5 on it. I seem to hit a lot of "This program cannot be run in DOS mode. Is it possible that these old games have somehow been recompiled to run on newer machines? Some examples are lemmings and wolfenstein 3d. We all know that back in the early 90s these certainly ran on dos...

When I get that message is that meaning that it is expecting it to run in Win 3.1, Win 95 or something like that? I have tried running them through Win 2.11 and it produced the same message.

Thanks!
 
Yup, this is the message that's delivered by the real-mode "stub" in the .exe file. Most likely, these are 32-bit executables. Try Win98SE to start with.
 
That does seem to be the problem. I had to dig around and find a real dos version and then it would run.
 
The original DOS version of Wolf 3D needs a 286. Most of the 10 MHz laptops I know of used an 8086 so Wolf 3D won't run. Also check the graphic capability of the laptop, some from that period can not do the video modes that games require.
 
Wolf36 runs great. Now I'm wondering exactly what is inside this laptop...
 
It'll be a 286 with VGA if it ran Wolf3D and runs at 10Mhz.

If you have DOS 6.22 then just type 'msd' at the command prompt to find out :)

How do you know it's 10Mhz? and what model is it?
 
I'll give doom another shot tomorrow. Blackthorne said I needed at least 2048 EMS and wouldn't start up. I downloaded emsmagic and set the EMS to 2048. Then Blackthorne would show a black screen forever.

It seems like Win 95 minimum requirements is 4mb of ram. Does my 640k amd 5mb extended qualify for that? As long as it can install separately from 3.1, its worth a shot.
 
It will run but the Windows 95 install will probably break Windows 3.1. There is a patch to sort that out though- 3xstart.exe is the name of the file. Some folk have had mixed results with it. You can make Windows 3.1look like win9x by installing Calmira II
 
Last edited:
You have 6MB (if the missing 384 is going to caching ROM). Win95 wants 4MB. Workable but slow and probably would be overwhelmed by later programs that run on Win9x. WordPerfect 7 would cause so much swapping that I would fear the hard disk failing.

It is possible to install Win95 separately from 3.1 allowing for you to switch between GUIs. It is however complicated. If I remember correctly, one needs to lauch the Win95 Setup from a DOS prompt and make sure it doesn't try to jump all over the Win 3.1 install.
 
Definitely don't want to tax the drive. This is more for fun than for trying to use it to write a document. If anything runs slow it might as well not be on there. I think the drive may already be having some problems but will open up a new thread on that topic (maybe over in the hardware forum).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top