120 NOVEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 381
WhateveryourPC,hardware, software,officeapplication
or macroissues,SimonHandby isheretohelp
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The impending demise of support for
Windows 7has got me worried. Imanage
my accounts with Bank Manager,
produced by Contex Computing many
moons ago.Itdoes everything Iwant in
an accounts program, but it was written
forcomputers running DOS. My current
PC runs Windows 7Professional and I
have to run Bank Manager via a
Windows XP emulator.
Idon’t want to continue running
Windows 7when it’s unsupported, and I
don’t want to stop using Bank Manager:
it holds all my banking and savings
information as farback as 1987! It does
everything Imight want, and can in theory
hold over amillion bank or analysis codes,
so it’s not about to run out of capacity.
Is there away Ican run this, or other
DOS era programs, formany years to come?
Mike
Support forWindows 7ends on 14th January
2020, after which Microsoftwill no longer
provide security updates. We’d advise
everyone to upgrade to amore modern
operating system before the end of 2019.
Happily,doing so won’t stop you using old
DOS programs, but you won’t be able to run
them using Windows 7’s XP Mode,which is
what it sounds like you’ve been doing.
Instead, we recommend you createanew
virtual machine (VM) and directly install DOS
on it. There are many ways to achieve this, but
forease and flexibility we’d recommend
VirtualBox –afree program forcreating and
managing VMs –and FreeDOS, which is
self-explanatory.Akey advantage of
VirtualBox is that it’s available forWindows,
macOS and Linux, so you’ll have more choice
over your next OS; you could even move your
BankManagerVMbetweenoperatingsystems.
Whether you upgrade to Windows 10 or a
Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, or buy a
new Windows PC or Mac, visitwww.virtualbox.
organd download the latest version of
VirtualBox foryour OS. At the same time,
visitwww.freedos.org/downloadand download
the standard
CD-ROM installer.
Run the
VirtualBox installer
when it’s finished
downloading and
accept the default
components. When
the installer has
finished, start
VirtualBox, click
New,name the VM
Don’tbankonit...
FreeDOS and you should
find that the wizard
automatically changes the
Version field to DOS.
Proceed through the wizard,
accepting the default RAM
and disk size.For maximum
flexibility,we’drecommend
changing the disk type to
VHD so that your VM will
work with other VM software if you need to
change in the future.Continue,accepting the
defaults, until the VM is created.
Now look in the Storage section of the
machine specification, click where it says
[Optical drive] Empty,select Choose disk
image,then specify the FreeDOS installer
you downloaded. Click Start; if the VM
doesn’t start successfully,reboot the host
(physical) computer and try again.
The VM should boot and load the FreeDOS
install program. LeaveInstall to harddisk
highlighted, but press the Tabbutton to
displaythe command line,then add aspace
and the wordrawat the end of the existing
commands. Hit Enter,and accept the defaults
to partition the VM’s drive.Reboot the VM
when prompted, then repeat the previous step
to restart the installation. When it’s finished,
close the VM from the File menu and, when
prompted, choose Power off the machine.
Return to the Storage section of the
machine specification, click the optical drive
and set it back to the host computer’s optical
drive,then restart the VM, and you’ll have a
working VM running DOS. If you upgraded
your existing PC, you should be able to install
Bank Manager directly from its original floppy
disks. If not, you’ll need to use your old PC
and autility such as Winimage to create
images of the original media. You‘insert’
these intothe VM by clicking Empty next
to Floppydevice on the VM specifications
page,then navigating to the .vfd or .flp file.
⬅Adding the ‘raw’ switch stops
the FreeDOS installer getting
stuck in an infiniteloop
⬅Edit the Storage
settings to mount and
access an image of the
original install floppy
