I still use an older machine to test the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler, as current Windows will no longer run DOS executables.

So this is pretty annoying. But as far as I can tell, FreeDOS does too much, it creates a dos environment in a separate window. What I'd like is:

  dosbox app arguments...

where dosbox emulates DOS just enough to run console apps. This would enable me to test the compiler conventionally.

So, what's needed is an 8086 emulator and a minimal DOS emulator. Is there a way to use FreeDOS like that?

I prefer DOSBox-X to DOSBox because it's easier to run; but it sounds like neither one is what you want.

Have you heard of or tried "MS-DOS Player"? It seems to convert binaries into a format that Windows can understand. I think you have to do it on a per-file basis so it might be more of a headache than it's worth; but it's out there!

http://takeda-toshiya.my.coocan.jp/msdos/index.html (original site)

https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2011/02/11/ms-dos-player-...

[edit]There's also winevdm which can run 16 bit windows binaries on 64 bit windows. It has DOS support but it's incomplete and it points back to MS-DOS player in it's readme...

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm