Discs and the disc shelf

All your machines share one disc shelf. Add a disc once and any machine can use it.

What 2ksbox reads

Format	Files
CUE/BIN	.cue with its .bin files
CloneCD	.ccd with its .img and .sub
Alcohol 120%	.mds with its .mdf
ISO	.iso
A folder	Any folder on your computer, served as a CD

The drive reads raw dumps the way a real CD-ROM drive does, so CD audio plays and many copy-protected discs work. A folder becomes an ordinary data CD, which is handy for patches, drivers and your own files.

Add discs

Open the Disc Shelf, or a machine’s Discs window, and click Add:

• Disc image… picks an image file.
• Folder as disc… picks a folder.
• Guest tools ISO adds the disc with 2ksbox’s drivers.

You can also drag disc images or folders from your file manager onto the window.

Click the pencil next to a disc to rename it (on macOS, double-click the name). Enter keeps the new name; Escape leaves the name as it was. The trash button takes it off the shelf, and leaves the files on your disk where they are.

Put a disc in the drive

Open the machine’s Discs window. The card at the top is the machine’s CD drive. Click Insert next to a disc in the library below. Eject empties the drive.

• Machine turned off: the disc waits in the drive and the machine starts with it.
• Machine running: the disc goes into the drive at once, as if you had swapped it by hand. Windows sees the change, and AutoPlay runs.

Swap discs from the machine’s window

In the player window, Machine > Disc has the same shelf. The disc in the drive has a check mark. Choose another disc to swap it in, or Eject to empty the drive. As in the Discs window, the machine also starts with that disc next time.

Insert Disc Image… and Insert Folder as Disc… add a disc to the shelf and put it in the drive in one step.

Swap discs from inside the machine

Games that span several CDs ask for the next disc in the middle of an install. You can swap from the launcher or the Disc menu, or from inside the machine with the disc shelf tool that the guest tools install:

• On Windows, run CDSHELF. With no arguments it opens a window that lists the shelf.
• At a command prompt, CDSHELF lists the shelf, CDSHELF 3 inserts disc 3, and CDSHELF E empties the drive.
• In DOS, CDSHELF.COM takes keys: 0 to 9 load a disc, E empties the drive, R reads the list again and Esc quits.

Tip

On Windows 98, the guest tools can also put an MS-DOS mode shortcut on the desktop with the CD drive and the Sound Blaster set up, for DOS games that won’t run in a DOS box. Choose it from the SETUP menu.

Install a game

1. Add the game’s disc to the shelf.
2. Insert it in a running machine.
3. Install the game the way the box says.
4. Before you play, read 3D games if it’s a 3D game.