Play dos games windows xp

Introduced in , Windows XP turns into a retro gaming platform faster each year and you might start to encounter problems when trying to install and play an XP game on the latest Windows operating system. Unfortunately, a simple Windows XP emulator does not exist, so you need to search for other solutions. On this page we discuss the most common issues and provide solutions for them. If you encounter additional issues yourself, do not hesitate to leave a comment.

Windows XP officialy supports DirectX up to version 9. The other way around, XP games might need DirectX 9. Windows 11 and Windows 10 come with DirectX 12 by default. These versions of Windows still support DirectX 9. However, when DirectX 9. Most XP games have the appropriate DirectX software included. When you install a game and it asks if you want to install DirectX with it, it's safe to do this, as the latest version of DirectX won't be overwritten.

If a game does not have the appropriate DirectX software included and the game does not start, but it does show a DirectX related error message, you can try and install DirectX 9. Go to our DirectX 9 download and installation instructions page.

If DirectX related error messages keep showing, you can find out what is wrong exactly by starting the DirectX diagnostic tool. Press the Windows key and R which opens the "Run" window , type in "dxdiag" and press enter. When you're asked if the program should check if your drivers are digitally signed, you can press the "No" button. When the diagnostic tool is running, you can click on one of the tabs, or click the "Next Page" button to see if there's an error and what it's about.

Firstly, you should check out the D-Fend Reloaded software package at this website. Click the D-Fend-Reloaded When you first open the software, click the Accept all settings option from the Welcome to D-Fend Reloaded window. That opens the window below from where you can launch the DOS games. To add the Lemming games and other alternative packs to Windows, return to this page.

That should add to the Lemming games to D-Fend Reloaded window as above. Now you can get the games up and running! Just click on one of the Lemming game titles to launch them as below. Tell me, where's the fun in not having to deal with himem. I'm sure none of us really miss those days. But, for an old timer like me, DOS will always hold a special place in my heart. I still remember all those fun filled afternoons when I'd come back from school, drop the schoolbag and sit and play Digger on our state-of-the-art IBM PC.

Haven't heard of digger? How about Invaders? Security and a spiffy new architecture is all well and good but if you're like me and you crave good ol' games of yore, there is still hope for you.

DOSBox is here to the rescue. What that means is that it creates and emulates a DOS based environment for your application.

To the application, it appears as if it's running on it's own under DOS. So, while DOSBox manages the show behind the scenes, the user really doesn't need to bother about compatibility, memory management and other stuff which only the old timers amongst us would recognise. DOSBox is also really easy to get started with.