Hi all,
I got the urge to play through these games again (mainly tftd, as I can't remember what happens in the end).

I have:
athlon 2100+ (1.74Ghz)
gf4 4600 ti (128MB)
running XP.

(first time round it was a 486dx/2 8MB! with vesa local bus graphics. DOS)

Whatever I did with XP I had random crashes to desktop.

I came acroos the virtual pc 45-day trial (24MB download):

connectix

Using this I have been able to play both the early ufos without any crashes. The speed is not too fast, I only have to decrease the scroll speed by 1 click in game (edit - Im running moslo as well now, it was a bit too quick as I have made some changes to my setup from when I typed this). The animation that happens when a new window opens (e.g. when opening the savegame screen) is actually a bit slow. The screen was small, but I adjusted my monitor, must've been set up wrong for that screen size. XP is running in the background, and its working with no noticable slowdown. I can minimise the virtual pc, leaving it with the game running. I've played for 6 hours and had the virtual pc running for a few days now. You should be able to finish both games in 45 days.

Virtual pc sets up a "virtual computer" onto your computer. This computer is running its own virtual hardware, and comes with no operating system.

If you have dos disks or a win98 cd then you can set up as explained in the documentation on the web site. Once your os is on, install the additions (it takes a while for this to start on the guest pc, just wait) and you can share a directory on your real computer with the guest computer. It is mapped on the guest as drive z:, so you can put any files you need to transfer in there.

For those without a win98 cd, you could find a free dos, or use dos from 95. I'll show how to use just a bootdisk:

1) go to bootdisk.com and download the DOS 6.22 bootdisk
run the file you just got: boot622.exe
put in a blank floppy as requested and it will make a disk.

2) make a new computer with virtual pc, follow the steps...
name it
guide me
dos
no (it doesn't need more memory)
new hard disk image
default location
finish...

3)startup the new pc with your bootdisk in your floppy drive. If it doesn't find the disk then click floppy>capture host drive a:

the virtual pc should now have booted, You should see this:

CD-ROM Device Driver for IDE (Four Channels Supported)
©Copyright Oak Technology Inc. 1993-1996
Driver Version : V340
Device Name : BANANA
Transfer Mode : Programmed I/O
Drive 0: Port= 170 (Secondary Channel), Master IRQ= 15
Firmware version :

MSCDEX Version 2.23
Copyright © Microsoft Corp. 1986-1993. All rights reserved.
Drive R: = Driver BANANA unit 0
A:\>

4)from here we need to partition and format the virtual drive c: (its not your real drive C:, if you mess it up you can just delete the computer and start again)

(I'm am going to put dos commands in CAPS, they don't have to be. All these commands are to be typed into the virtual pc. DONT use them in a command window on your real pc)
type

FDISK

and press enter, you will see the fdisk screen, do the following steps:

choose 1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
choose 1. Create Primary DOS Partition
choose Y to accept the maximum size and make it active
it will now reboot your virtual computer, keep the disk in.

at the A:\> prompt type:

FORMAT C: /S

types yes to confirm
once done type a label (anything you like)

5)ok we now have a hard drive, the OS is DOS but its on the floppy,
so copy everything over to the hard disk:

COPY A:\*.* C:\

select no when prompted to overwrite command.com

6) now we want to add the ability to share a folder with windows:
back in windows, open windows explorer
copy the file "Dos additions.vfd" from here:
"C:\Program Files\Connectix\Virtual PC 5.1 Trial Online Installer\Additions\Dos Additions\"
to your desktop.
drag the "dos additions.vfd" files icon onto the small floppy disk icon on the bottom of the virtual pcs window. type the following on the virtual computer:

A:
DOSADD

it will say when it is finished. This copies some files to your computer.

7) turn off the virtual pc (PC on the menu, shut down, turn off, ok)

open notepad on XP
open autoexec.bat on the a: drive

(NOTE: if drive A: doesn't seem to have the needed files on then do this:
start windows explorer, click on drive a:
choose tools, folder options, View tab and make sure the following are set:
display the contents of system folder - on
show hidden files and folder - on
hide extensions for known file types - off
hide protected operating system files - off
click apply)

in notepad with autoexec.bat open:
delete everything, paste in the following:

@echo off
PATH = C:\
PROMPT $p$g
LOADHIGH c:\mouse.com
LOADHIGH c:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:cdrom /L:D
loadhigh c:\cntx\fshare.exe
loadhigh c:\cntx\idle.com

save autoexec.bat on the floppy, overwriting the original
for config.sys do the same, use this:

DEVICE=c:\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off
device=c:\emm386.exe noems
DOS=HIGH, UMB
FILES=25
BUFFERS=25
DEVICEHIGH=cd1.SYS /D:cdrom
LASTDRIVE=Z

save config.sys to the floppy.

8) start your virtual pc with the floppy in.
type the following at the prompt:

COPY A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\

select yes to overwrite

COPY A:\CONFIG.SYS C:\

select yes to overwrite
eject the floppy from the drive and restart the virtual pc.

9) Its now ready for xcom, its cdrom is D: (if you have more than one real cd drive, select the one to use at any time from CD on the top menu). Floppy is A: . Finally there is the ability to share a directory on your real computer:

make a folder to share on your real computer, I'll call mine eric
put the files you want on both computers into eric.
right click the small folder icon on the bottom of the virtual pc window, select "share folder" and navigate to eric.
click ok. it is now shared on the virtual pc, type:
Z:
DIR

and you will see any shared files. you may need to type the Z: command twice:
Z:
Z:
DIR

NOTE: when you install a game, the virtual pc knows nothing about the real hardware you have. It has a virtual soundblaster 16, which is on address 220, IRQ5, DMA 1 and works well. Likewise the graphics card, the virtual pc has an s3virge/trio emulated, this means you dont have to do anything with directx or your hardware settings on your real computer.
The game speed for me is fine, there are settings on the main virtual pc window (not an individual virtual pc, the other window) under preferences to alter the priority f the virtual pc.

The settings used above give the game ample memory to install and run.
Now, back to the game...

Thanks for your input! If someone could verify it, let me know, and I'll move it to the FAQ forum.

it works.
the only down side it that it is was to slow on the menues and way to fast the rest of the time. I used moslo 4 biz and it could not get battle to a decent speed.

-Blade

I guess its hardware dependent, like other solutions then. I'm still playing through tftd and am happy with the speed. I find I need to use moslo if I haven't got much running in xp.

Cons:
Slow menus - not a big deal for me, may be an issue with slower processors.
Fast scrolling/firing - in game setting slows it down.
Fast game - things like trying to sell all the alien corpses but keep 1 for research, its hard to stop the counter on 1, it skips past to 0. This can be fixed with moslo.
Fast animation - no fix for this

Pros:
doesn't crash when playing in XP (see below though)
sound works

I did have a couple of crashes to DOS with emm386 errors during extensive play. Its probably caused by the virtual hardware using some memory that emm386 puts aside, it would be fixable using:
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-D7FF
something like that, if I knew what memory range to use. For now I've stopped loading emm386, and removed the cd drivers, as I don't need them:

CONFIG.SYS
----------------
DEVICE=c:\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off
rem device=c:\emm386.exe noems
DOS=HIGH, UMB
FILES=25
BUFFERS=25
rem DEVICEHIGH=cd1.SYS /D:banana
rem DEVICE=C:\CNTX\CDROM.SYS /D:CDROM /L:D
LASTDRIVE=Z

AUTOEXEC.BAT
-------------------
@echo off
PATH = C:\;c:\tftd
PROMPT $p$g
LOADHIGH c:\mouse.com
rem LOADHIGH c:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDROM /L:D
loadhigh c:\cntx\fshare.exe
loadhigh c:\cntx\idle.com

Ok, I got Terror working this way.... But UFO crashes in DOS4GW. This is the message I get:

Error [35]: Unexpected Interrupt=0000 in DOS4GW.EXE at 0080:0918
code=0000 ss=0090 ds=0158 es=0158
ax=3E01 bx=0005 cx=000E dx=6A40 sp=220E bp=C84C si=AA42 di=B8DC

If I try to run go.bat, the game enters an infinite loop and I have to boot the VPC...

If anybody has some idea, I can add more details.

Thanks