How to get TBBS to run under 32 bit windows

A support forum for eSoft's TBBS and related software. An alternative support method while www.tbbs.org is down.
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Masher
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How to get TBBS to run under 32 bit windows

Post by Masher »

It works for some machines, and for some it simply does not. I believe it's reliant on whatever hardware is on the machine. You can try disabling all but the necessary peripherals in the bios.

Edit %SystemRoot%\System32\Config.nt, below is what worked for me. You'll probably need to tweak the B value (keep reading to see how to test, but start with 1000).

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dos=high, umb
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
files=76
EMM = A=255 B=1400 RAM
I made no changes to %SystemRoot%\System32\Autoexec.nt, but it does exist and is loaded when a command prompt is started, just as config.nt is.

Browse to %SystemRoot% in windows explorer, find _default. This contains the default settings for the command shell. Right click and choose properties. Go to the memory tab and set the below settings, then click ok.

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Total Conventional memory:  Auto
Initial environment:  Auto
Protected is checked
EMS Memory:  16384
XMS:  16384
Uses HMA is checked
DPMI:  Auto
Now open a command prompt, type "mem". If you get no output, increase your EMM = B=1000 setting by 100 until the output of mem shows EMS memory in the output list. Now try to start TBBS; with any hope/luck it'll start.

Note on 64 windows operating systems: Microsoft dropped NTVDM support on 64 bit Operating Systems. It's simply not able to run 16 bit applications.
Masher
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