Re: How can I check (and run) if an *.exe is a DOS or a Windows program?
On Sat, 7 Jan 2023 at 22:34, Ottavio Caruso
<ottavio2006-usenet2012@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have a few DOS/Windows abandonware that I'd like to check but I only
> want the DOS ones, because Wine on my installation is a total pain.
[...]
> $ file test2/sm/SM.EXE
> test2/sm/SM.EXE: MS-DOS executable, MZ for MS-DOS
> Which makes me think it's DOS but it could be a false positive. Then,
> how do I run it? Dosemu, Dosbox?
Hi, I just noticed that I had easy access to some archives here,
so I did some tests to compare with your 'find' output above.
Here is what the 'file' command reports when testing some
examples of *.COM and *.EXE files from MSDOS 6.20 and
MS Windows 3.1 operating system files.
[david@kablamm ~]$ file --version
file-5.39
magic file from /etc/magic:/usr/share/misc/magic
[david@kablamm MSDOS_6.20]$ file COMMAND.COM
COMMAND.COM: DOS executable (COM)
[david@kablamm MSDOS_6.20]$ file DEBUG.EXE
DEBUG.EXE: MS-DOS executable, MZ for MS-DOS Self-extracting PKZIP archive
[david@kablamm WIN_3-1]$ file WIN.COM
WIN.COM: DOS executable (COM)
[david@kablamm WIN_3-1]$ file NOTEPAD.EXE
NOTEPAD.EXE: MS-DOS executable, NE for MS Windows 3.x (EXE)
That seems to confirm your file SM.EXE as being MSDOS
compatible.
> Should that be run before or after uncompressing it?
The SM.EXE should be placed in the current directory
or PATH of an MSDOS compatible operating system
and run by typing SM at the DOS command prompt.
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