need help please with installing old games

[thegame]

i just bought a new computer and it came with winxp pro and now i cannot install any of the old games i could on my old system.
i am trying to install ultima 7 and serpent through my command prompt like i did before and it wont let me and then itry to install exult 1.2 win installer and that wont install either,i get this pop up:

16 bit windows subsystem
C:|WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT.The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows Applications.Choose "Close"to terminate the Application

I had a close and ignore option i tried ignore and didnt work
is there a way to install these games onto the HD with DOSBox?

please help really would like to play these titles again,games i am trying to install are Ultima7,Serpent,Ultima VIII Pagan,and UnderWorld 1&2.

old pc was a pentium 3 512k 40 gig hd windows xp
new pc pentium 4 3.2 ghz 1gig mem 160 gig hd windows xp pro
so the only real differences are more speed and memory and 1 was normal xp the other pro

thanks for you help
game

[Patrick Elliot]

Yes. Dosbox should run the installers properly. Basically the difference is that XP's console uses the memory of a real machine to run. It has to, since the programs that run there sometimes need to talk to windows and you can have entirely text based Windows tools. This means that if an application tries to do something perfectly valid under DOS, like directly accessing video memory, Windows won't allow it. In the case of some installers, Windows recognizes that they are applications you cannot run, so it refuses to let you. Dosbox however works by setting aside a 640k block of memory and making the games and programs 'think' they are running on a completely seperate computer. The installers, games and programs don't know the difference and as far as Windows is concerned the only thing actually running is an application called Dosbox, which may once in a while ask for more memory. It is basically a software emulation of a read computer and thus runs things as though you went out and bought an old 486, then installed DOS and your game there.

[thegame]

thanks for the reply but how do i get Exult to load i cant get that to install either i keep getting this message:

16 bit windows subsystem
C:|WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT.The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows Applications.Choose "Close"to terminate the Application

thanks in advance
game

[Colourless]

Delete and redownload. And don't use any download manager

[thegame]

thanks for the info but i read an earlier post that suggested that and i deleted and downloaded 3 times and NO dl manager still same pop up.will not install.
thanks again
game

[Dominus]

google is your friend:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;324767

[wjp]

Um, but the Exult installer isn't a dos or win16 app, is it?

[Colourless]

No. It's Win32. All I can say is the download is corrupted

[Dominus]

yeah that the installer is screwed up by this is strange and points towards a corrupted download (as Colourless pointed out).

Edit: I tested it out and deleted my autoexec.nt and now get those messages as well when I start dos-programs. But not with the Exult-installer.
Something is really messing your download up.

[wjp]

http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21518#p21518

[thegame]

thanks alot guys for all the help i now have EXULT and DOSBox installed all i did was copy the autoexec.nt file from c:\i386 to c:\windows\system32 and rebooted now everything installed but now i have to try to get my software to install
the complete Ultima 7
Ultima VIII Pagan
Ultima Underworld 1&2

thanks again
game