DOSBox-X just got a step closer to booting Windows 95 natively

The DOSBox-X project has released version 2026.06.02. The update introduces support for loading real MS-DOS device drivers directly through the emulator's configuration, paving the way for native Windows 95 booting.

Standard DOSBox has a very clear goal: run classic DOS games as easily as possible. It cuts corners on hardware accuracy to keep performance high and focuses almost entirely on gaming. DOSBox-X takes the opposite approach. Started as a fork by Jonathan Campbell, DOSBox-X is designed to emulate an entire PC ecosystem. Instead of just faking enough of DOS to get a game running, DOSBox-X emulates the BIOS, the hardware quirks, and the operating system accurately enough to run productivity software and Windows environments. It includes a full drop-down menu system, save states, and deep configuration options that the mainline project avoids.

Loading real drivers

The June 2026 update takes that accuracy a step further. Users can now load actual MS-DOS device drivers into memory using the command line or configuration file. Typing a command like config -device C:\DOS\OAKCDROM.SYS -devparm "/D:CD001" now works exactly like adding a DEVICE= line to a traditional CONFIG.SYS file back in the 1990s.

Previously, the emulator relied on hard-coded driver emulation. Now, it routes these requests through the actual INT 21h device chain. INT 21h is the main DOS API interrupt. By using the actual device chain instead of a built-in list, DOSBox-X acts more like a real PC motherboard and less like a translation layer. The emulator is also optimizing how it handles external driver read and write operations. It is moving away from an older one-byte transfer method to larger data blocks, speeding up overall I/O performance.

The Windows 95 problem

The ultimate goal here is native Windows 95 support. Windows 95 is notoriously difficult to emulate in standard DOS environments because it is not just a DOS program. It is a protected-mode operating system that expects to take direct control of the hardware.

The development team wants DOSBox-X to emulate the Windows 95 Installable File System driver. This would allow Windows 95 to boot from a disk image directly within the native DOSBox-X environment. Right now, this feature is still in early development. Only the initialization phase works, but the foundation is being laid.

I have spent more hours than I care to admit trying to get Windows 95 running smoothly in various emulators. PCem does a fantastic job with hardware accuracy, but it demands a lot of CPU power. Standard DOSBox requires complicated workarounds to boot a Windows 9x image, and even then, it is prone to crashing. Having a middle ground where DOSBox-X can just natively boot a Windows 95 image without jumping through hoops is exactly what I want for playing late-90s PC games. There is an entire era of early DirectDraw titles and Windows 95 exclusives that fall into an awkward emulation gap.

Under the hood fixes

The latest release also cleans up a few bugs, including a file search issue that caused problems on newer Darwin kernels used by macOS. A previous release (2026.03.29) corrected an environment block ownership bug related to DOS executable files.

DOSBox-X remains an open-source project. The new build is available to download across Windows, macOS, and Linux.