MS-DOS Import Launchbox 11.9

[Jonny Hall]

Issue experienced with Launchbox 11.9.

When importing folders containing MS-DOS games via drag-and-drop into Launchbox, the importer accepts them, downloads metadata, etc. However, when attempting to launch them, the error message appears:

“The file you’ve specified for the application path was not found”.

On closer inspection, I have discovered that if I go to “Edit Game - Launching”, the application path does not include the path to the EXE or BAT - just the EXE - ie it assumes it’s in the Launchbox root folder.

It is possible to change the path manually, but doing this for multiple games will be tiresome in the extreme and against the spirit of the application.

Note this occurs regardless of whether I Copy the files to Launchbox, or leave them in the current location.

I tried to work around this via the Tools - Import - MS-DOS Games - I can work through the wizard, but only by importing one game at a time. If I import my entire MS-DOS folder, the wizard works through the usual steps, but after pressing ‘Finish’, it imports nothing, despite showing the correct root folders on the last stage of the wizard.

[Jonny Hall]

Additional: Using Windows 10.

I have looked into this issue further by studying the MS-DOX.xml file.

I've been poking around in the MS-DOS.xml file for more info.  After my recent import, I've noticed for a game (say, Duke Nukem 2).  I keep my Launchbox games in a OneDrive folder called 'Emulation Essentials' - to prevent bloat, I only import selected games from a platform.  

The root folder is correct:

<RootFolder>..\..\Users\elect\OneDrive\Emulation Essentials\MS-DOS\Duke Nukem 2</RootFolder>

Application Path is shown as....

<ApplicationPath>NUKEM2.EXE</ApplicationPath>

However, Launchbox tries to locate NUKEM2.EXE relative to the location of Launchbox.EXE, rather than the RootFolder for the game in question.  It can't find it, and it  errors. “The file you’ve specified for the application path was not found”.

The only way to get the game to load is to manually input the entire path to the exe, I.e for Beyond Castle Wolfenstein....

<RootFolder>..\..\Users\elect\OneDrive\Emulation Essentials\MS-DOS\Beyond Castle Wolfenstein</RootFolder>

<ApplicationPath>..\..\Users\elect\OneDrive\Emulation Essentials\MS-DOS\Beyond Castle Wolfenstein\BCW.COM</ApplicationPath>

So the problem seems to be that Launchbox isn't using the RootFolder XML to locate the game, you have to manually direct it to the game folder from the location of Launchbox.exe.

[Jonny Hall]

Further info: This seems to be confined to Launchbox 11.9. Reinstalled Launchbox 11.8. The issue does not seem to occur there.

[Christian]

This will be corrected in 11.10-beta2. Thanks for this report. Let me know if it doesn't resolve the issue as expected.