There is information about desktop shortcuts to DOSBox here
http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxShortcutsAs an example this line could be in the target line of a shortcut
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -conf "C:\Games\Chewy\dosbox.conf"
The "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" is the location of your DOSBox executable -- wherever you installed it.
The -conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\dosbox.conf" would be the location of the configuration file for that particular game. You could call the .conf file anything -- it doesn't have to be dosbox.conf. In this example you could call it chewy.conf. What's important is that you copy the contents of your normal dosbox-0.74.conf file into the chewy.conf and then edit it to be specific for your Chewy game.
DOS and Windows don't care about upper and lower case, but they usually do care about spaces and punctuation. If there is a space in a path name, you have to put quotes around it. So
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe"
needs quotes around it.
With
-conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\dosbox.conf"
the quotes are optional, and if you use them you don't include the -conf in them.
1. Make a desktop shortcut that points to DOSBox.exe
One way to make a shortcut is to browse to the DOSBox.exe file, right-click it, and choose Send to Desktop. So the target line might look something like this
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe"
2. Create a .conf file to go with the game.
Copy the the original dosbox-0.74.conf file to the game folder. You can rename it to something shorter if you want, like chewy.conf
Make the changes to the chewy.conf file that are specific for the game. For Chewy you might want
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount c c:\ChewyF5
mount d e:\ -t cdrom
c:
cd CHEWY_F5
CHEWY
but a different game might be in a different folder.
3. Once you have the shortcut and the .conf file, you need to configure the shortcut to use that .conf file. So you add
-conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\chewy.conf"
to the target line of the shortcut and get something like
"C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe" -conf "C:\DOSgames\Chewy\chewy.conf"
(assuming your game is installed in C:\DOSgames\Chewy and your chewy.conf file is located in the game folder.)
Once again, you can name the .conf file pretty much whatever you like. You can keep it as dosbox-0.74.conf if you want as long as you put a copy in the game folder and point the DOSBox shortcut at that particular dosbox-0.74.conf file.
Another question:
If your DVD (CDROM) drive is D to begin with do you need to mount it or just change to it.
z:\>d d:\ -t cdrom (hit enter) or
z:\>d: (hit enter)
D:\>
Don't forget the mount command.
Think about what the line is doing.
mount D D:\ -t cdrom
is mounting your Windows D: drive (the first D) as D:\ in DOSBox.
If you said
mount D -t cdrom
DOSBox would think "mount what as my D:\ drive ? I'm supposed to mount something as my D:\ drive. Wonder what that could be."
DOSBox needs to associate your Windows drive with its internal D: drive (what the game sees), so you need both letters even if they happen to be the same letter. It won't assume you want a drive mounted unless you specify what that drive is in Windows and what letter you want your DOS game to see it as.