Imagem will not run natively in Windows Vista nor Windows 7.  Imagem also will not run on certain Windows XP machines for unknown reasons.  DOSBox (www.dosbox.com) is a free, open-source program that allows Imagem to be run on Windows XP and Vista.  DOSBox currently will not run on Windows 7, but that will probably change in the future.  DOSBox also runs on other platforms (e.g. Mac OS and Linux), though Imagem has not been tested on these platforms.

Installing and running DOSBox

Download the executable file from www.dosbox.com.  Run the executable and follow the directions from DOSBox.  When DOSBox is run, it pops up two windows: a status window and the actual DOSBox command prompt.

To access drives and directories, they need to be mounted from within DOSBox.  This is done with the "mount" command.  For example, to mount "C:\Imagem" to "C:\", the command is "mount c c:\imagem".

Imagem still requires the IMAGEM and PATH environment variables to be set.  This is done with the regular DOS "set" commands:

set IMAGEM=C:\
set PATH=C:\

Note: this follows the above example where C:\Imagem is mounted to C:\.

Automating DOSBox

DOSBox can automatically run some commands for you when loading.  So, DOSBox can automatically mount drives and set environment variables.  This is done through the config file.  The DOSBox status window gives the location of the config file.  Look for the line starting with "CONFIG:".  The path listed at the end of this line will be the config file location.  On my XP, it is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\DOSBox\dosbox-0.73.conf.

Edit the config file with a text editor like Windows Notepad.  Find the "[autoexec]" section at the very end of the file.  This is very similar to the "autoexec.bat" file in DOS.  DOSBox runs the commands in the [autoexec] section each time DOSBox starts.  In this section, the mount and environment variable commands can be added.

For example:

echo off
mount c c:\imagem
mount d f:\stratagem
echo Setting IMAGEM and PATH environmental variables...
set imagem=c:\
set path=%path%;c:\
d:

In this example, Imagem is located at C:\Imagem.  It is mounted to C:\.  The Stratagem data is located at F:\stratagem and is mounted to d:\.  The IMAGEM and PATH environment variables are set to C:\.

DOSBox Mouse Issue

When the DOSBox window has the focus, it tends to take control of the mouse.  This can be changed by a setting in the config file.  Under the [sdl] section, there is a line "autolock=true".  Change this to "autolock=false".  Now, DOSBox will no longer steal the mouse.