Axle-Ozz-i-sofT
commented
1 year ago Hi, This is another DOS problem I am working in the background and relates to the "Auto add applications" suggestion. DOS didn't have much of a standard when it came to application locations. Even pif files can end up in multiple locations. At the moment I am launching ALL applications from a BAT either in the system\DOS directory or the application directory. I am considering moving all application start up BAT file to a single "Launch", "Appstart" or some similar named directory in my future DOS install and adding the bat directory to the system path. My current FreeDOS install uses a base config.sys(with boot menu) and autoexec.bat to set base paths and drivers. I then run a basic launch menu after autoexec to load the shell/launcher I want to use I don't load any custom path environments here. Either from Costa or File Maven 3 I then run the batch file for the individual application where I have to set specific environment variables in the bat for that application. ALL apps run from a batch file. If I move all of those batch files to a single directory and set the path to it in autoexec I can then launch the application name.bat form any directory without the fully qualified path.
I think the question is" "Where do I install an application to?" as DOS had no "Program Files" directory. I currently use C:\PROGS as my default for manual installs, but many installers will go to root and some other variety of locations. Even FreeDOS fdimples uses a number of different program directories including C:\PROGS.
The other issue is stopping app installers from altering my config.sys and autoexec.bat by adding it's own environment variable and paths.
DOS is messy, but I love it lol Axle
How about the Costa Shell got some kind of easy, no-hassle program installer, to make it easy to install games and programs into the DOS system?
I mean, when I download a zipfile, from myabandonware.com, its would be very nice, just to let Costa do the "installation" and the creation of the desktop shortcut :-)
Costa could have some built-in recognition of known programs and games, which could be used to autosetup the desktop shortcut with the right icon and name. It the build-in logic can not recognize a program, it should create shortcuts the whatever .exe, .com and .bat file it finds in the zipfile.