March 14, 2006

Moo2v140 LAN games under Windows XP Home

It is fairly difficult to setup a DOS LAN game on Windows XP Home Edition. Windows XP Home has no DOS mode networking support at all and even network support for windows applications is restricted.

Start by installing Master of Orion II v1.40. Just follow the regular Installation on Windows XP instructions.

In order to play LAN games of Master of Orion II v1.40, XP Home users will need to install a Novell Netware client. However, Novell does not officially support Windows XP Home edition. Some versions of Novell Netware client will definitely crash your system. Some will work partly.

The version of Novell Netware client that I have had some success with is "Novell Client 4.91 SP2". I make no guarantees that it will work for you. Novell makes no guarantees that it will work or won't crash. It is up to you if you want to try it.

Follow these steps if you want to install it:

1. Download it from here Here.
2. Run the self extractor. Make note of the folder where it is extracting. Change the folder name if you want to. Click unzip. 409 files should be extracted successfully.
3. Open My Computer. Browse to the folder noted above and then into "Novell Client 4.91 SP2 English" folder. Double click "setupnw" to run the installer.
4. Agree to license agreement & click next.
5. Choose "Custom Install" & click next.
6. Novell Client for windows is already selected so just click next.
7. Uncheck "Novell Modular Authentication Services" (so nothing is selected) & click next.
8. Select "IPX" (only) as the protocol & click next.
9. Select "NDS" & click next.
10. Select Finish. Wait for it to install. Then choose the option to Reboot when finished.

Upon reboot, you will get a Novell login screen. To log in, choose "Workstation Only". Your username should appear now in the box. Leave it. There should be no password unless you made one. Press ok.

You will need to edit the c:\windows\system32\autoexec2.nt file and change as shown below. The lines in bold will need to be added and the lines referring to Kali should be removed to avoid conflict.

@echo off
REM Load DOS mode CD-ROM support
lh %SystemRoot%\System32\mscdexnt.exe

REM Load DOS mode DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\System32\dosx_sp1

REM Set parameters for Sound Blaster Emulation
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3

REM Load DOS mode Novell IPX support
%SystemRoot%\system32\vipx.exe
%SystemRoot%\system32\vlmsup.exe

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