Dos / windows 3.1 how did programs install?

[Fordiesel69]

I have a game that I paid good money for, and installed on a 486DX 33MHZ and it is called Maxis Simfarm. The floppys are junk now so all I got is a nice box.

Was looking thru my server and back in 2006 before I scrapped the PC, I made a copy of the folder "Simfarm" off the old hard drive.

How would I install this on an old PC? I have a bunch to choose from.

I forgot how programs installed back then........

 

[Jetronic]

they would have an installer (some *.bat or *.exe file). In a dos environment you didn't install, just copy to a drive or folder you wanted to run from.

 

[Pew]

I don't remember how but I sure remember that awesome game! Lucky you!

 

[cptbarkey]

yup, look for setup.exe, setup.bat, install.exe, etc.
Then you get to have fun setting up IRQs for your sound card, etc.
My son is having a ball trying to revive my old Pentium. We are starting a soldering project soon because it has a dead integrated cmos battery.

 

[Fordiesel69]

Same here. The caps are all blown on my 440bx chipset motherboard with a slot pentium 3 550. Also the hard drive is getting really loud like a dry bearing so I got to make a mirror very soon so i dont loose it all. It has a running legit copy of windows 98 and all kinds of good software that was also legit.

 

[redhat]

Back in those days with DOS and early 16-bit Windows (pre-95 and NT), installers were mainly applications to extract/copy to the destination folder on the hard drive as per the “installation” wizard or the users chosen destination. The age of those applications, especially a game like that, I doubt it has any registry entries or needed environment variables. Basically it installed by a glorified copy.

You could probably copy that Simfarm directory to a location on your hard drive that you have full read/write access to (without a privileged account) and launch the Simfarm.exe executable and the game would run. IIRC though, those early Maxis games (I remember SimTower) were 16-bit games. So you’ll need to launch them from a 32-bit or x86 edition of Windows. I did have SimTower working just fine on Windows 7 x86.

 

[Fordiesel69]

I bet this game would run in dos mode on win98 on my p3.

 

[wag123]

I bet this game would run in dos mode on win98 on my p3.

DOS programs are far more likely to run well on Windows XP than Windows 98.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Why's that?

 

[Thermo1223]

If it's already "installed" in that folder it is basically run the setup to configure sound and off you go. If you just copied the floopies then you need to move everything over and run install or setup.

 

[thastinger]

Would be a setup or exe file typically on the first numbered disc, then it would ask you to insert the next numbered disc during the install process. If it was from a CD, then you just found the setup.exe and executed it.

 

[Rand]

run it under dosbox
I regularly play master of orion 1993 version.

 

[SeaJay]

My son is having a ball trying to revive my old Pentium.

Pentium, the higher end model back in the day, it has been decades since I last heard that name.

 

[cptbarkey]

Pentium, the higher end model back in the day, it has been decades since I last heard that name.

regrettably my 8088 is gone, 286, 386, and 486 also whereabouts unknown.

 

[Brons2]

Pentium, the higher end model back in the day, it has been decades since I last heard that name.

Produces Erroneous Numbers Through an Incomplete Understanding of Math!

(this is about the Gen 1 60/66Mhz Pentiums first released circa 1994/1995 with a math bug)

(edit: original P5 Pentium released March, 1993. Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium)

 

[Jetronic]

run it under dosbox
I regularly play master of orion 1993 version.

Playing MOO2 regularly aswell, it just draws mez in though, I have to keep going till I win or die....

 

[Jetronic]

regrettably my 8088 is gone, 286, 386, and 486 also whereabouts unknown.

I had a 286 with 25Mhz Harris chip. 4MB ram and 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives + 40GB conner HD and VGA graphics. I was king of the hill back then lol

 

[Wheel]

they would have an installer (some *.bat or *.exe file). In a dos environment you didn't install, just copy to a drive or folder you wanted to run from.

Don't forget the old .com files ...

 

[Wheel]

regrettably my 8088 is gone, 286, 386, and 486 also whereabouts unknown.

Ugh, my Dad hangs on to all his old PCs. I can probably get you 15-20 of those if you need them. He won't likely miss them.

 

[Fordiesel69]

I decided to put dosbox x on my main rig and low and behold the backup that I made of simfarm actually worked perfect. Even the saved farm. Now to find the old floppys with all the saved farms on it.