A DOSCenter guide! -=- Quickstart -=- Assuming you also downloaded a .dat file, do this: 0) unzip the .dat file and unzip the DOSCenter executable somewhere 1) Launch DOSCenter, go to settings+tools, select load .dat file from that menu and point it to where your dat file is. After it loads, click ok, or skip to the settings and tools info below to set up some more items. 2) Click the browse button on the main doscenter GUI and browse to where you have zips of games. DOScenter only works with .zip files, not 7z or RARs. 3) DOSCenter will then show you a list of your zip files on the left-side view. 4) Right click on a file, or select a range of files with shift+click or select all the files with Ctrl-A, then right click and with the submenu select "scan" (refer to the screenshot on nugnugnug.com for reference) 5) DC will then examine the CRC of the files inside the zip against the .dat file and find the closest match, if it can. As you can see on that screenshot that it has figured out that "NINJ1TDT.ZIP" is actually Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. Hopefully you'll have similar results show up! 6) If DOSCenter can't really figure out what it is, it'll say "no good matches" Those are the ones that are the most interesting. Essentially that means that your zip has no files inside the zip that match the CRC database, meaning that game is not in the archive yet. It could be that we just haven't gotten around to it if it's a common game, especially a game released after 1994, OR it's a new/crazy rare game, so you need to get it to us ASAP! :) 7) You can now 2x click on any zip file to see the contents in the right side view. There are right-click menus on both view panes to allow you to work with your zip collection. -=- What and Why -=- === What DOSCenter does === DC compares zip files on your hard drive against zip files of known DOS games. We want to do this because it assists in determining known games from unknown games. When attempting to build an archive of all known DOS games, using a database of games speeds up the identification process signficantly. You may have an old zip file called "SCORCH15.ZIP" on your hard drive. Wouldn't you rather have it named "Scorched Earth v1.5 [SW] (1995)(Wendell Hicken) [Strategy].zip"? It certainly would make looking for that game easier in the future. DC is also a zip management tool. You can use it to merge zip files together, move the around on your hard drive, view the contents of them, unzip them to a specified folder, etc. DC identifies games by comparing the CRC-32 of the files inside each of your zips against the .dat file, which assists in telling, for example, the difference between Scorched Earth version 1.2 and scorched earth version 1.0, even though the game's filename (SCORCH.EXE) is the same. CRC checking can also tell you if the files inside your zip may have been modified by cracking, hacking, virus attachment, corruption or other reason. The closer your zip's CRC's match known CRCs in the database, the more accurate the suggested filename for that zip file will be. This is reflected by a game's "score". === DOSCenter scoring === If you look at the top of the list on the left side view, there are a few numbers: "score", == ,xx ,??. The score is how close this zip file is to what is in the database, and it's calculated based on the values under == xx and ?? columns: == means how many files in your zip matched the .dat file both in CRC and in filename. xx means how many files in your zip are missing from the .dat entry for the game doscenter thinks that zip is. ?? are the number of files in your zip that are completely unknown to the database. A score of 100 down to about 60 means that there is a high probability that your zip file is actually the game that doscenter thinks it is. A score > 100 means that you likely have some extra files in your zip compared to what we have in the database. That usually means your zip may have a savegame file, a config file, or a BBS ad or pirate group NFO that we've cleared out of our copy. A score between 60-30 or so means that either your game is very different, or DC completely blew it trying to identify your game. As the .dat file grows as more games are identified, hopefully the number of zips you have that fall into this range will decrease. We've already cataloged more than 11,000 files, but we're not done yet! If you zip file scores below 30, DC won't embarrass itself by trying to tell you a completely incorrect game title, it will just give up and say "no good matches". == zip file viewer === If you 2x click on any zip file in the zip file browser and the right side viewer will display a listing of files inside the zip. If DC has matched your zip against something in the database, you'll see a color coded listing of the files inside your zip, based on the matches or non-matches of the files in your zip against the files in the database. Green means a filename+CRC match. Light green means a CRC match but the filename is somehow different than what is in the database. (Eg, someone renamed GAME.EXE to START.EXE) Gray means the file is ignored (see "ignore files" in the settings+tools section below) Purple means that file exists in a different entry in the database- you'll see this a lot if you scan a compilation of games for example. Black means the file is unknown. Red files means that your zip is missing that file based on what the .dat file is telling us it should have. Brown means the file has a different CRC than the one in the database, but the filename is the same. - This can mean many different things, such as a different crack, a corrupt file, a different version of the game, we don't yet know, and it depends more on which file inside the game's zip is different. Eg, HISCORE.DAT having a different CRC than the one the database has is nothing special. However, GAME.EXE reporting as a different CRC needs to be investigated closer! If 2x click on any file inside the zip viewer, it'll display that file for you in a hex editor view if the file is binary, or as a text window if the file is, for example, a README.TXT. The file viewer is useful in determining if a black file is something important, like maybe additional level data in a registered version of a shareware game, or if the file is stupid like a rusty-n-eddie's BBS ad or an intro.exe file from a pirate group proclaiming how cool they are. From here, it's up to you to explore the contents of the zip file, using the color coding and viewer as a guide. Depending on how well DOSCenter identified your zip will help determine what may be different in your zip file. Games that show "no good matches" are interesting to us- that means we do not have this game in the database yet, and thus we want to add it. You could in fact, unzip this zip file to your DOSbox folder and playtest it to find out what it is. Then you could rename your zip file to better reflect what the true title is, then you could move that file quickly to your "home" folder. You could later on create a .dat file of your own based on games you have identified in your home folder and send that .dat file to us. The more people that do the work of renaming games, the better the .dat file will be and the faster we can get DOS games identified. -=- Reference section -=- === Settings and Tools === .Dat file stuff: [] Load .dat (we covered that above) [] .dat info - shows you the .dat header and file count. [] Make a .dat file - Use the browse button for the DOS Collection path (aka home path) to set the folder where the zip files you have will be read to generate your .dat file. DOScenter will ask you to fill in the .dat header too. DC will recursively scan your zips in the home path and create a .dat file. If you have an interesting collection of DOS games, you could create a .dat file and send to us to see what you have. Paths: [] "Home path" - where DC will build a .dat file from. You can right-click any zip on the main GUI view and move a zip to the home path. The home path is not where the browse button on the main GUI screen is used. The home path is essentially a static reference location. This allows you to browse your individual zip folders, rename your games and move them "home" without using windows. [] DOSBox folder - browse this to a folder (usually something like c:\temp\dosbox) where you have DOSBox configured to mount as your C: drive. DOSCenter can then take any zip from the main GUI and unzip it into this temp folder and you can launch DOSBox to playtest your game easily. [] Temporary scratch pad - point this to C:\temp or something. DOSCenter just needs a work folder where it can unzip files if it needs to. DOSCenter will attempt to clean this folder every time it launches so it won't get too cluttered up. Ignore files: [] Ignore files configuration - click this button to load in DCIgnore.ini and allow you to add/delete/modify its contents easily. The ignore file is a way to tell DC that certain files inside your zip are not important when scanning. This is helpful to avoid false positives when scanning your zips. Eg, GWBASIC.EXE might be included inside many zip files, but that file is not useful in determining what game uses it. Audio card drivers, font files, DOS4GW.EXE, file_id.diz, etc are all files that are often included in many games from many different sources, but they don't add to the uniqueness of the game itself and thus aren't useful for identification. You can specify exact filenames and CRC, or use a * to allow wildcards. You can also fill in the minimum size requirement for a file. Typically this should be set to 10 bytes or less. Files can often have CRC collisions with sizes below that value, which throws off scanning accuracy. Minimum score for auto-rename: If you want to rename your zip files to match the .dat file, the better the "score" (more on that later) the better the confidence that DOSCenter has figured out what your game is. Typically scores below 40 are suspect to mis-identification, and thus it is not recommended that you auto-rename your files that are below that value. Use auto-rename with caution. Reports and scripts: [] Generate have/missing report - this will provide you a text file with a list of games you have and are missing compared to the .dat file loaded. [] Create Flash FXP scripts- if you are a used on the FTP site, this will generate a script to log into the FTP site to download your missing files. If you're not a user of the FTP site, well, sorry. === Right click menu, left view === [] Rename->auto rename - renames your zip file to whatever DC thinks it should be. If the "score" is too low (see settings and tools above) it will not be renamed. DC will rename any file that has been highlighted. You can highlight multiple files by selecting them with the mouse, or standard windows keys. If a file with the same target name exists already, DC will display an error popup. [] Rename->manually - Pops up a text window and lets you type in whatever you'd like. You can access this popup by pressing F2 as well. If DC has scanned your file and thinks it knows what the filename should be, the "new filename" text will be in this window. If DC is displaying "no good matches" then the original filename will appear in this popup window. Press the OK to rename the file. If the filename is invalid, DC will popup an error message. [] Rename->from clipboard - Pops open the above text window and fills in the text with whatever text is in your clipboard. [] Rename->forget - forces DC to dump the suggested filename it thinks your file should be. [] Delete - yep, it deletes a zip file (or multiples if selected). use with caution as it cannot be undone. [] Refresh - refreshes the zip file view. Unfortunately you will lose all the scanned filename information. F5 is a shortcut for this function. [] Scan - Check the zip(s) against the .dat file, hopefully identifying it. [] Merge Selected - if 2 or more files are highlighted, this function can combine the contents of all the files into a new zip file. DC checks to make sure the target file won't have files with the same name but different CRC, and will allow you to decide if you want to continue or not. This is function is useful to take games that spanned many zip files and put them back into 1 zip for easier transportation. The new file will be added to the bottom of the list of zips when DC finishes. [] Move->Browse - pops up a standard windows browse dialog as to where you want the zip(s) moved to. [] Move->home - moves the file into your pre-determined (see settings and tools above) home folder without bringing up a browse dialog. (saves time) [] Unzip to DOSBox - If you're a DOSBox user, and have configured a folder where you typically have DOSBox mounted to, DC will drop the game there, ready to be played. [] year scan - Examines each file inside the zip for some kind of year. This was useful in early games to see if there was any information embedded inside a file as to the year the game was made. This feature will likely be removed since it's not so great. It can sometimes help identify a game's year of release or compile time. Use with caution. [] Fix a zip - Use with extreme caution! The concept is to take your zip file and update it against the information in the .dat file. If for example your zip has the timestamps destroyed by torrentzip and the .dat file has actual timestamps, the function can fix it. This feature has not been very well tested- I'd stay away from it if I were you! === Right click menu, Right view === [] Export file listing->to clipboard->color/no color [] Export file listing->to file->color/no color - these 2 options drop the list of files inside the zip into a file or the clipboard. The color information can be useful for remote debugging/sharing the contents of your zip with others. [] Add to database - adds this game and zip contents into the .dat file database. It is not permanent. Files scanned in the future can then use this information. [] Add to .dat file - same as above, but appended physically into the .dat file loaded. In other words, permanent add this zip into the database. [] View file - this will pop up a hex/text viewer of the file specified. 2x clicking on a file defaults to this option. If viewing a hex file (such as game.exe) you can then click on "strings" to get a display of all the standard ASCII messages in the file. This can be useful to locate verion numbers in an unknown game. [] Compare - attempts to locate the zip file suggested, then locates the target file inside the zip and compares it against the selected file, showing the 2 files in a hex editor view. Nice in concept but a bit cumbersome to use. Can be a time saver comparing game.exe against game.exe in another zip, perhaps revealing why the CRC is different. [] Add to ignore list - adds the selected file into the ignore database. Use the settings+tools option to modify the entry if needed. Helps remove some clutter and improve scanning accuracy if the file is indeed something that should not be used in identification. [] Zip Commands->delete - deletes the target file from the zip [] Zip Commands->rename - renames the target file in the zip [] Zip Commands->move files up - if the zip you're viewing has the files "buried" inside a folder, this can be used to move them up 1 level. You'll find many, many zip files on the net that are zipped with a root folder of the game's name. Depending on how many times that game has been re-zipped, you may find 2 or more folders of game names before you get to the files. This is annoying- this feature helps return all the files back to the root of the zip. [] Zip Commands->extract to zip - takes the specified file(s) and creates a new zip file of them. Useful to extract docs or trainers from games. [] file info - a bit more information with the color coding scheme. If a file is purple, DC will tell you which other .dat game has that file, and optionally allows you to switch the scan view over to that entry. === Top checkboxes === [] Auto scan zips - after browsing to a source folder, all zips discovered are scanned (if a .dat file is loaded) [] Recursive - Checks all sub-folders below the selected one to find zip files to scan. === Bottom checkboxes === [] Hide->matching CRCs - removes all green colored files from the zip contents viewer. Useful for when a game has hundreds of files. [] Hide->missing - DC will not display files that it thinks is missing from your zip. (red files) [] Hide->unknown - removes all the black files from the zip view list. Note: using any of these checkboxes can adversely affect the "file info" selection from the right-click menu. It's a bug. [] Use ignore list - global enable/disable of the ignore list. -=- Bugs and caveats -=- --- The zip library is not the greatest. Sometimes you'll get an error trying to unzip or view files in a zip. This is usually due to really old or really new compression techniques employed by the zip file itself. You can usually fix these errors by re-zipping the file using winRAR or 7z. Both tools have the ability to bulk re-zip an entire folder of zip files. --- Sorry, we only support zip files. WinRAR can bulk convert files to zip. --- Scanning zips is a tricky business. Use with caution, and use your head when renaming your files.