PLAYING OLDER SIERRA/DYNAMIX FLIGHT SIMS UNDER WIN9X WITH A BOOTDISK GAMES: RED BARON, ACES OF THE PACIFIC, ACES OVER EUROPE, AND A-10 ----------------------------------- Baron von Pilsner (aka. Chris McBride) 10-18-2000 http://acepage.beckament.net baron_von_pilsner@hotmail.com ----------------------------------- Believe it or not, I've gotten a lot of email this year (2000) on how to run the 'ACES' games under Win9x - most of these emails concern either making a working bootdisk or adding sound / joystick / mouse support to a bootdisk. I will attempt to answer all these questions in a single FAQ. I have no affiliation with Sierra / Dynamix. I use the ACES COLLECTION CD versions of the games in question, and always do a full install of the games (otherwise the bootdisk will require CD-ROM drivers - not covered in this FAQ). However the boot disk should work on the floppy versions of the 'ACES' games as well.... You should read the ReadME and text files included in the bootdisk maker archive - they can answer most of your questions better than I can. These instructions do not include CD-ROM driver support - they take up precious memory & may not leave enough memory free to play the games. Read the ReadME and text files included in the bootdisk maker archive for information on adding DOS CD-ROM support. ----------------------------------- I. BEFORE YOU START You will need a blank floppy disk, one of the 4 Sierra games this document applies to, and a copy of the updated bootdisk maker from Sierra. You can (at the time of writing this document) find the updated bootdisk maker at - http://www.sierra.com - it's kind of hard to find it on their massive web site.... (so try http://sierra.com/demos/preview/1,1690,273,00.html or ftp://ftp1.sierra.com/pub/patches/pc/bdall.exe or ftp://ftp2.sierra.com/pub/patches/pc/bdall.exe - these links work as of 10-18-00). Conventions: anything surrounded by brackets [] is to be typed from an MS-DOS window - but don't actually type the brackets... ex.: [BDALL] means you should type the word BDALL and press enter... I assume you've done a FULL INSTALL of the game you want to run with a bootdisk. If you want mouse support you need a DOS mouse driver, all my examples use ctmouse.exe because it's a really small driver - and is currently available from my site at http://kickme.to/acepage ----------------------------------- II. EXTRACTING THE FILES FROM THE BDALL ARCHIVE Open up an MS-DOS window (START->PROGRAMS->MS-DOS-PROMPT on most windows systems) and go to the directory where you downloaded the bootdisk maker, type the name of the archive (BDALL.EXE currently) and press ENTER. ex.: [BDALL] This should extract the files you need to make the bootdisk. -or- In windows explorer, double click the updated bootdisk maker file you downloaded (BDALL.EXE currently) and it should extract the needed files. -or- If it is in .zip file format use your favorite archiving utility to extract the files before proceeding on to step III. ----------------------------------- III. MAKING YOUR BOOTDISK 1. Put the blank floppy disk in your floppy drive. 2. in an MS-DOS window (START->PROGRAMS->MS-DOS-PROMPT on most windows systems) go to the directory where you extracted the bootdisk maker files. 3. At the command prompt type: [BOOTDISK -e] and press ENTER. NOTE: the bootdisk maker is case sensitive - you need to type the '-e' in lower case or it will not work. 4. follow the bootdisk maker on screen prompts - if all goes well you will be told the bootdisk was successfully created. 5. Do NOT press ctrl+alt+del to reboot your computer, close the bootdisk maker window at this point. 6. That's it - it's done - you may now boot to your new bootdisk. If you have any problems consult the next section of this document. ----------------------------------- IV. COMMON PROBLEMS PROBLEM: No joystick support - but sound works SOLUTION: Make sure joystick support is enabled (and calibrated) in the preferences menu of the game. SOLUTION: You may need a patch for your particular game - check http://www.sierra.com or http://kickme.to/acepage for game specific patches. SOLUTION: You may need a DOS driver for your joystick... consult your joystick documentation. PROBLEM: No sound SOLUTION: Make sure sound is enabled in the preferences menu of the game. SOLUTION: You may need to add a line to your bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT file similar to: SET BLASTER=A200 I5 D1 H1 P300 T6 However the line will probably vary from mine... there are several ways to determine what the SET BLASTER=... variable needs to be set to. In all the following cases you will need to add the SET BLASTER=... command to your bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT file, after you've determined what goes in place of the ... NOTE: There are some bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT examples later in this document - one of them shows how the SET BLASTER=... variable will look when inserted into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. (You will need to determine your system specific SET BLASTER=... variable settings however.) A. Open up an MS-DOS window (START->PROGRAMS->MS-DOS-PROMPT on most windows systems) and type [SET] at the command prompt (don't forget to press ENTER), If a BLASTER=... line is displayed simply copy it to your bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT file (as SET BLASTER=... not BLASTER=...). -or- B. The SET BLASTER=... variable may be in your C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file - if it is just copy it to your bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT file. -or- C. If you have a file called DOSPROMPT in your WINDOWS directory, the SET BLASTER=... settings may be here. 1. right click the DOSPRMPT file and select PROPERTIES. 2. select the PROGRAM tab and click on ADVANCED. 3. check the 'MS-DOS MODE' and 'SPECIFY A NEW MS-DOS CONFIGURATION' boxes. 4. scroll down the 'AUTOEXEC.BAT FOR MS-DOS MODE' window - if you see the SET BLASTER=... variable copy it to your bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT file. 5. be sure to cancel out of the 'ADVANCED PROGRAM SETTINGS' and 'DOSPRMPT' windows so you don't accidentally save any changes to your DOSPRMPT settings. -or- D. ***LAST RESORT***DON'T MESS UP YOUR BIOS SETTINGS*** Recently I reinstalled windows and could not get any sound from any of the Aces games... I had to boot to my BIOS SETUP and (in the PNP DEVICES section) ENABLE - RESET CONFIGURATION DATA. Then I saved the changes, rebooted and everything worked. (NOTE: I also changed from PNP OS - YES to NO and I do not have the SET BLASTER=... line in my AUTOEXEC.BAT bootdisk file) ***ALWAYS NOTE ANY CHANGES YOU MAKE SO YOU CAN CHANGE THE SETINGS BACK IF IT DOES NOT WORK OR CAUSES ANY OTHER DEVICES NOT TO FUNCTION*** PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ME ABOUT YOUR COMPUTERS BIOS SETTINGS ----------------------------------- V. ADDING PS/2 & SERIAL MOUSE SUPPORT TO YOUR BOOTDISK You need a DOS mouse driver, all my examples use ctmouse.exe (from the archive ctmouse.zip) because it's a really small driver - and is currently available from my site at http://kickme.to/acepage Make sure your bootdisk works properly before you add the mouse driver. 1. Copy the file (you downloaded and extracted,) ctmouse.exe to your bootdisk. 2. Add the following line to your bootdisk AUTOEXEC.BAT file: LH A:\CTMOUSE 3. That's it... if it doesn't work, simply modify the line to: A:\CTMOUSE Examples are included at the end of this document. ----------------------------------- VI. BOOTDISK AUTOEXEC.BAT AND CONFIG.SYS EXAMPLES ORIGINAL BOOTDISK FILES =====AUTOEXEC.BAT===== @ECHO OFF C: PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND PROMPT Sierra Boot Disk $_$p$g SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM ====================== ======CONFIG.SYS====== DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=EMM386.EXE RAM -1296 DOS=HIGH,UMB FILES=30 BUFFERS=20 ====================== MODIFIED (WORKING) ======CONFIG.SYS====== DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=EMM386.EXE 1296 RAM DOS=HIGH,UMB FILES=30 BUFFERS=20 ====================== =====AUTOEXEC.BAT===== @ECHO OFF C: PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND PROMPT Sierra Boot Disk $_$p$g SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM cd c:\sierra ====================== ADDED SOUND SUPPORT =====AUTOEXEC.BAT===== @ECHO OFF C: PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND PROMPT Sierra Boot Disk $_$p$g SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM SET BLASTER=A200 I5 D1 H1 P300 T6 ====================== MOUSE DRIVER EXAMPLES =====AUTOEXEC.BAT===== @ECHO OFF C: PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND PROMPT Sierra Boot Disk $_$p$g SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM LH A:\CTMOUSE.EXE ====================== =====AUTOEXEC.BAT===== @ECHO OFF C: PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND PROMPT Sierra Boot Disk $_$p$g SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM A:\CTMOUSE.EXE ====================== ----------------------------------- THE AUTHOR OF THIS DOCUMENT ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE OR COMPUTER DOWNTIME RELATING TO THE USE OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT. THE AUTHOR OF THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH SIERRA / DYNAMIX IN ANY WAY.