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General discussion[Win10] Start menu shortcuts and games using DOSBOX(16 posts)(16 posts)
(16 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 14, 2016
Recently I have noticed that games that use DOSBOX don't have entries in the windows start menu for launching the game.

The shortcut files do exist, as can be seen by going to the folder under Microsoft/windows/start menu/programs/[game folder], but for some reason my Windows 10 won't display them. Other shortcut items are displayed correctly, such as manuals or the GOG uninstaller for the game.

It isn't a big issue, I don't mind three-four more clicks to launch a game from the menu, but I'm curious as to why this is happening. I'm relatively new on Win10 (actually 6+ months...) and I still find everything needlessly obtuse and rephrased from classical windows terminology. It often takes me several minutes to find simple interfaces for setting up wireless internet and so on, and I'm sure completely in the dark about any "user friendly" settings that prevent certain shortcuts from showing up. Ugh, it feels like Microsoft figured that 99% of their users are A) going to be using Win10 with laptops or tablets and B) are idiots who will break everything if you give them any tools or straight tech talk.

I don't know what the consensus is among gamers but personally I find Win10 to be the most stable one I've used so far. I just wish their idea of user friendliness didn't mean hide exactly everything that a PC user may ever need to check or change.
Posted September 14, 2016
Create a new shortcut on the desktop and point it to explorer.exe shell:games. Call it Game Explorer.

It bring backs the old game explorer of Windows 7. You can find all the shortcuts to GoG games here.
Alternately you can copy the shortcut of the game to the desktop, right click it and select pin to start, and after pinned it to start, delete the shorcut from the desktop.
Post edited September 14, 2016 by DalekSec
Posted September 14, 2016
The windows 10 start menu is fucked up beyond usability. I still use total commander.
Posted September 14, 2016
What a strange issue. None of my Dosbox Duke Nukem games appear in All Apps for me. I will try to investigate into the source of the cause.

For now, I'll copy and paste the shortcut's configurations. Its target is set to:
"D:\Games\GOG Games\Duke Nukem\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf "..\dosbox_duke.conf" -conf "..\dosbox_duke_single.conf" -noconsole -c exit

And its start in setting is set to:
"D:\Games\GOG Games\Duke Nukem\DOSBOX"

That said, I don't find the wireless interface setup and the rest hard to find in Windows. If the wifi settings aren't in your taskbar or action center (which should be by default), they'll be in the Settings section which is available from the Start Menu/Screen and Action Center plus via searching with Cortana/Windows Search. I wonder what difficulties you've met.

Back to the issue, right now, it seems that the target is quite 'fancy' if you catch my drift, pointing to the DOSBox executable then giving it the config parameters among others. What if I make all of this in a .bat file and make a shortcut for it?
Posted September 15, 2016
Looks like the complicated shortcut target system is causing it issues. By making a launch.bat file where the DOSBox executable, and cutting off the path from the shortcut's target up until the DOSBox.exe part, and saving that in the launch.bat, then making a shortcut for that launch.bat and putting it right beside the manuals and uninstallers (with your shortcut icon if you wish), the shortcut is visible in Start.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't an issue prior to the Anniversary Update, but it looks like it is.
Posted September 15, 2016
Sorry I don't have a solution to your specific problem, but Classic Shell is very good if you want to replace Windows 10's garbage start menu with something that's familiar, quick and actually works.
Posted September 17, 2016
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PookaMustard: [...] That said, I don't find the wireless interface setup and the rest hard to find in Windows. [...]
I wanted to talk about the general feeling, not a specific problem. In hindsight I should have just pointed to the "control panel" being EVEN worse than the one in Vista. You know how it used to be: Here is 95% of the stuff you will ever need sorted under different intuitive topics. Now: Eeeeeh here are some extremely general topics and maybe the thing you're looking for is nestled within one... and when you find it, you have almost no options to change because we think you're a dumb touchscreen device using consumer.

Going back to wireless settings, it used to be that everything was accessible from the Network Map. Now much of that is spread out and nestled into really unintuitive interfaces and no advanced settings easily accessible.

Back on topic, it seems you're right about the shortcut having too many launch parameters is something Win10 won't accept, so instead it doesn't display the shortcut even though it exists. So, Anniversary Update huh? Maybe that is why I didn't react earlier if it didn't do this before the update.
Posted September 17, 2016
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PookaMustard: [...] That said, I don't find the wireless interface setup and the rest hard to find in Windows. [...]
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Sufyan: I wanted to talk about the general feeling, not a specific problem. In hindsight I should have just pointed to the "control panel" being EVEN worse than the one in Vista. You know how it used to be: Here is 95% of the stuff you will ever need sorted under different intuitive topics. Now: Eeeeeh here are some extremely general topics and maybe the thing you're looking for is nestled within one... and when you find it, you have almost no options to change because we think you're a dumb touchscreen device using consumer.
I feel this is a better implementation than Vista!Control Panel's 'categorize the settings' view because it had some options missing, while the Windows 10's Settings have little missing options and it usually links them with the control panel if it doesn't have the functionality yet. If anything, the Anniversary Update added a search option so you can search for the setting you need and moved a part of the network settings from CP to Settings, so there is progress being made. I think this is why you have that general gist of no options to change, they're still in the control panel.

How long till everything gets ported over though...
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Sufyan: Back on topic, it seems you're right about the shortcut having too many launch parameters is something Win10 won't accept, so instead it doesn't display the shortcut even though it exists. So, Anniversary Update huh? Maybe that is why I didn't react earlier if it didn't do this before the update.
Simply put I was able to see those DOSBox titles prior to the Anniversary Update in Start, but now I don't. It is strange, because my desktop is neat-freak clean now and I rely on the Start Screen to get anywhere plus a dedicated game shortcut folder I built myself. That said, I opened feedback for this issue on the Feedback Hub in Windows 10. You can upvote it.
feedback-hub:?contextid=203&feedbackid=f6efdb28-85b6-437c-bd35-aa1288cba817&form=1&src=2

(Link appears to only work with the Feedback Hub app)
Posted November 11, 2016
Still scratching my head about this. I was able to get the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 shortcut to "Pin to Start", but not Theme Hospital and Master of Orion 2. Still, getting any game launching shortcut to even show up in the actual start menu has not worked out for me. Renaming the shortcuts to something different from the folder name does nothing.
Posted November 12, 2016
I found a workaround:

- When installing a game, choose to make a desktop icon for it.
- Right click said desktop icon it and choose "pin to start"
- The icon should now be visible on the Start Menu
- You can freely delete the desktop icon, the Start Menu one will remain.
Post edited November 12, 2016 by enigmaxg2
Posted November 12, 2016
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enigmaxg2: I found a workaround:

- When installing a game, choose to make a desktop icon for it.
- Right click said desktop icon it and choose "pin to start"
- The icon should now be visible on the Start Menu
- You can freely delete the desktop icon, the Start Menu one will remain.
For whatever reason, this still does not work for me with Theme Hospital and Master of Orion 2. Nothing happens when I select Pin to Start. Other games however it is possible to do this.

I'm not curious enough to experiment further, it is just a minor inconvenience and a mystery I'd like to see solved but can live without an explanation or solution.
Posted November 13, 2016
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enigmaxg2: I found a workaround:

- When installing a game, choose to make a desktop icon for it.
- Right click said desktop icon it and choose "pin to start"
- The icon should now be visible on the Start Menu
- You can freely delete the desktop icon, the Start Menu one will remain.
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Sufyan: For whatever reason, this still does not work for me with Theme Hospital and Master of Orion 2. Nothing happens when I select Pin to Start. Other games however it is possible to do this.

I'm not curious enough to experiment further, it is just a minor inconvenience and a mystery I'd like to see solved but can live without an explanation or solution.
Strange issue, sadly I don't have these games, anyways, try this:

- Delete the Start menu folder of the game which should be located at: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs (In my case I tried with Tyrian 2000 so is Tyrian 2000 [GOG.com], do this with the folder of the game or games you want) then try to pin the desktop icon to Start again.
Post edited November 13, 2016 by enigmaxg2
Posted December 21, 2017
Okay, I just installed GOG Galaxy and a handful of games, the other day. Logging into Windows 10 today to start playing a few, I notice none of the DOSBox or ScummVM games have an icon for the game itself. Only manual and setup apps, and the like are in their Start Menu entry. Actual Windows games via GOG do have a game icon.

What gives? Surely this cannot _still_ be the same issue over a year on? Can it? :-(
Posted December 22, 2017
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Wizardling.373: Okay, I just installed GOG Galaxy and a handful of games, the other day. Logging into Windows 10 today to start playing a few, I notice none of the DOSBox or ScummVM games have an icon for the game itself. Only manual and setup apps, and the like are in their Start Menu entry. Actual Windows games via GOG do have a game icon.

What gives? Surely this cannot _still_ be the same issue over a year on? Can it? :-(
I doubt that other than the support ticket started with Microsoft earlier in the thread, no one is aware of this, and if they are I doubt Microsoft cares. Still curious as to why they have chosen this solution. If the shortcut is too complex, Windows just hides it from the start menu. What for? To prevent casual users from clicking something that may be broken and not have them complain afterwards?
Posted January 18, 2018
Confirmed - missing GOG game shortcuts in the Start Menu, for games which use extended DOSBox parameters, under Windows 10 Anniversary Edition onwards (including Autumn / Fall Creator's Update).

The workaround appears to be:

(note that at various points you may be asked to confirm administrator rights)

Start File Explorer (Start menu, type File Explorer)
Go to the game program folder, e.g:

C:\GOG Games\Theme Hospital

Right-click empty space, new, text document
Rename the new text file launch.bat (remove the .txt extension, yes you want to change the extension)

Open a new explorer window without closing the existing one (File - Open New Window)
Go to the start menu game folder, e.g.:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Theme Hospital [GOG.com]

Right-click the original game shortcut e.g. "Theme Hospital", properties
Copy the target from the original shortcut, for example:

"C:\GOG Games\Theme Hospital\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf "..\dosboxTH.conf" -conf "..\dosboxTH_single.conf" -noconsole -c exit

In the first window, right-click launch.bat , edit
Notepad should open with an empty file
Paste in the target that you copied
Save and exit the editor of launch.bat
Right-click launch.bat , create shortcut

In the second File Explorer window, rename the original game shortcut to something else,
for example rename "Theme Hospital" shortcut to "X Theme Hospital"

From the first window, copy "launch.bat - Shortcut" to the second window

In the second window, rename "launch.bat - Shortcut" to the game name, e.g. "Theme Hospital"
Right-click the old "X Theme Hospital" shortcut, properties, change icon, copy the path of the icon
Right-click the new "Theme Hospital" shortcut, properties, change icon, paste the path of the icon
Also change "Run" to "Minimised"

The new shortcut should now appear in your Start menu under the game's folder.
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General discussion[Win10] Start menu shortcuts and games using DOSBOX(16 posts)(16 posts)
(16 posts)