Why do all my mounts for Windows 98 seem to get mounted in some kind of write-protected mode?

[jez9999]

Hi all, I've setup a Windows 98 configuration with DOSBox-X by following the following guide:

https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AInstalling-Windows-98

It's working, Win98 is booting, but I'd like some way to save files from Windows 98 to my file system so I tried mounting a drive for this purpose, drive Y. Here's my autoexec:

IMGMOUNT 0 empty -fs none -t floppy
IMGMOUNT 1 empty -fs none -t floppy -size 512,15,2,80

@REM Utility drive X (unmounted after we've finished using it)
MOUNT X C:\games\Windows-98\_DriveX

@REM Main C drive
IMGMOUNT C X:\hdd.img

IMGMOUNT -u X

@REM Utility drive Y (stays mounted while Win98 is running)
MOUNT Y C:\games\Windows-98\_DriveY

BOOT C:

Windows 98 boots OK and Explorer shows " Y_drive (D:)" as its own drive, and I can read what's already there. When I rename a file or delete or write a new file it looks like it's changing in Windows 98's explorer, but nothing changes on my actual file system, even when I shut down Windows 98 properly, all changes are lost.

Why does this appear to get mounted in some kind of write-protected mode? How can I mount a folder so that when I make changes in Windows 98 explorer, it'll make those changes on my real file system? I don't want to mount an image, I want to mount a real folder so I can directly access files I write/modify in Windows 98.

[rderooy]

What you describe, matches the documented behaviour. The folder mount gets converted to a temporary image file and any changes are lost.

[jez9999]

Also, you say this is the documented behaviour, but I don't see it documented anywhere. Could you link to the documentation that talks about converting a folder mount to a temporary image file?

[rderooy]

A folder mount gets automatically converted to a temporary image file, when you boot a guest-OS such as Win98. Changes to those temporary image files get lost on closure. It is possible to save such a temporary image file from the menus, this is also documented on the wiki page you referenced. It is not possible to save such changes back (directly) to the host folder, you would have to extract them from the saved image file.

Also see:

• https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AInstalling-Windows-98#_host_folder_mounts
• https://dosbox-x.com/wiki/Guide%3AManaging-image-files-in-DOSBox%E2%80%90X

Being able to use folder mounts in a guest OS is a relatively new feature of DOSBox-X, but has various limitations and I would personally avoid it, and use image files.

[jez9999]

How would you save a file from Windows 98 to your file system then? Save it to an image file? How would you then extract the file from the image file?

[rderooy]

Have a look at the second link on how to access the contents of an image file from the host OS. It depends on the host OS used.

[jez9999]

OK, I've been able to copy files out by doing an imgmount and a mount in a DOSBox-X DOS session. It'd be handy if there were some way to do it directly from Win98 though. If a regular MOUNT isn't possible, perhaps mounting a folder as a ZIP drive so you can easily copy files to/from it.