How to create a Windows 3.11 virtual box

1. Follow the steps in this post: How to create an MS DOS virtual box.
2. Reboot the virtual machine. It should start MS DOS and load the CD driver
3. Next insert the Windows 3.11 iso image into the CD ROM drive
4. Change to the CD ROM by giving the "d:" command (assuming you mounted the CD ROM on d:)
5. Run the SETUP.EXE program
6. About 15 seconds later Windows 3.11 will be installed.

I recommend powering down this virtual machine and copying it somewhere so that it can be the basis for a Windows 95 upgrade install or a Windows 98 upgrade install.

How to create an MS DOS virtualbox

Before starting, make sure that you have:

1. img files for each of the MS DOS disks so that you can load them into your virtual floopy drive
2. an MS DOS boot disk with CD drivers (due to a bug in virtual box you'll need this for formatting the HDD (and for me since my MS DOS img files have no CD ROM driver, I needed to get it from this iso))

Now, follow these steps to set up the virtual box. Create your virtal box with a configuration like this:

1. 64 MB RAM
2. CD Drive
3. Floppy Drive
4. 250 MB HDD

Next,

1. load the MS DOS boot disk (that has the CD Driver built into it) into the CD drive and start the virtual machine.
2. Issue the "format c:" command to format the HDD
3. Remove the CD from the CD drive (i.e., the iso image) and put MS DOS floppy #1 in the floppy drive (i.e, the floppy img file) and reboot
4. Install MS DOS
5. Remove the floppy images and replace the MS DOS iso into the CD ROM
6. Restart the machine
7. Copy the needed lines from AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS as well as the CD driver file from the iso disk to the HDD.
8. Remove the iso image and reboot the machine

You should now have an operating MS DOS system with CD ROM support.

How to create an ISO in linux to use with DOS

1. use the mkisofs command.

2. use the -o option to denote the name of the output file to create. e.g. -o myiso.iso.

3. use the -N option to ensure that version numbers are not appended to the file name

4. tell the command where the root directory of the files you are looking for is.

E.g.:

mkisofs -o zork.iso -N ~/games/Zork

The above will copy all the files (and subdirectories) beneath the games/Zork directory underneath the home folder of the user and store the image in a file named zork.iso