SHP Forums

Can you play DOS games from a USB flash drive?

I'd like to know because Maia has a work laptop that we're bringing with us to her parents. She doesn't want to install programs like ScummVM, WinFrotz or DOSBox on it since it is for work; however, we'd also like to play a few games on it.

Theoretically, I don't see WHY we could play those old games from a USB flash drive. DOS games don't install to the registry and in fact, I don't even need to install them at all. I just use the EXE, COM or BAT files. Even so, I'd like to find out if it'd work. Just because it SHOULD doesn't mean it'll actually do it.

There is a PortableApps version of DOSBox, but is not really necessary if you copy the DOSBox folder from one of you home PCs to the thumb drive. If she doesn't want anything to be written to her user profile, just specify a dosbox.conf on the thumb drive to be used, using relative paths. Don't do any captures unless you specify a capture folder on the thumb drive in the dosbox.conf.

I have not tried it, but there is a PortableApps version of ScummVM as well. You can try starting any supported games via a shortcut to bypass the need of an ini file, but I can't guarantee that it won't write one in the user folder, anyway. To run a ScummVM game by a Windows shortcut, add the command line options after the path to scummvm.exe in the shortcut properties.

Yeah, as long as you have DOSBox it should work. I burned a bunch of old Sierra games to a DVD and play off the DVD. Obviously I just change the directory to the hard drive (or flash drive) to save my games. But otherwise no problem. So if I can play the games off a DVD, you should be able to play them off a flash drive.