Why does executing DOSBox.exe open a "DOSBox Status Window" and a "Welcome to DOSBox v0.74" window? Shouldn't it start the game? I guess you have to type something in the command line to launch the game, but what I don't understand is how does the shortcut GOG Galaxy creates work if it's a shortcut to the exact same .exe file? How is that shortcut different from launching the .exe directly?
The same behavior is triggered in another DOSBox game I have.

I don't have much knowledge/experience with DOSBox, so I hope somebody who does can explain this.

DOSBox is a dos emulator, so it needs to run by itself in a sense.

That doesn't explain why the shorcut works and the .exe it's opening doesn't (or how to get from the DOSBox window to the running game).

the shortcut invokes the .conf file for the game, though if you are trying to run the classic doom I suggest using the many source ports available.

Okay, so how should I start the game if I don't have a shortcut or Galaxy launcher? And how does the shortcut open .conf if it says destination file is DOSBox.exe in properties? I don't get it.

Just double-clicking the DOSBox.exe will simply start the DOSBox emulator, so you'll get the DOS prompt, nothing more. When you use the shortcut, though, it runs DOSBox.exe with a parameter to call a conf file (sometimes multiple conf files) which will run a series of DOS commands within the emulator that launch the game.

However, for Doom, as already suggested by Lord_Kane, you will be far better off using a source port to run the game as then it will be running natively within Windows. Personally, I favour GZDoom, but if you want multiplayer then currently Zandronum is better for this. These ports allow you to improve the graphics and the control scheme and offer some gameplay elements (like turning off autoaim and adding a crosshair, using a modern HUD rather than the old statusbar, a map overlay option, the ability to turn on jumping and crouching (more for mods rather than the base game), etc. However, if you want a source port that gives a vanilla experience then Chocolate Doom would be the way to go.

Hi, thanks very much for the explanation, that's the information I was looking for. :)
I know about the various ports, but I wanted to experience the most "original" version of the game. Besides, are those ports even legal? The only versions id Software is currently selling are emulated versions on Steam and GOG.

Anyways, how to make a shortcut with that parameter needed myself? Where are those conf files and how to add them to a shortcut I made?

Thanks!

The source ports are completely legal as they don't come with the game data files, they are just a custom engine and don't do anything on their own, you have to provide the WAD files to get them to play Doom. There are also other free IWADs that they can play, such as The Adventures of Square, HACX and Freedoom.

If you want a vanilla experience, I'd say give Chocolate Doom a try. You can have it set up exactly as the original Doom and it looks the same too, it just means that it is running natively without an emulator (and some machines and games can struggle to run well within DOSBox).

https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/Chocolate_Doom

If you installed Doom with the GOG installer then it should have created the shortcut in your Start menu already. The .conf files should be present within the installation folder, possibly inside the DOSBox folder. I haven't ever used the GOG installation as I use source ports, so I just extracted the WAD files from the GOG installer to use them myself. However, to run DOSBox and call a conf file you'd need a shortcut like the following (you'll need to make sure your shortcut is pointing to the DOSBox folder and the conf file folder, though, as this is just a simplified shortcut):

START DOSBox.exe -conf doom.conf

1) How do I exactly create a shortcut as you described? How do I get a shortcut pointing to two folders? And where do I enter that "START DOSBox.exe -conf doom.conf" command? I guess I need a more specific step-by-step description.

2) If I ever switched to a port, how exactly do I "provide" WAD files from the emulated version? Is there a tutorial for this online?

2) Most source ports will now scan to find it, or you can just copy the wad from the install folder into wherever you extracted the source port. GZDoom will look in GOG install dirs to find wads. or you can just extract into the gog install, but you will have run the source ports own EXE to play the game.

1) The shortcut points to one folder, to the DOSBox.exe. The -conf is a parameter that points to the conf file, wherever it is stored. You can do this with a batch file or by creating a shortcut in Windows (right-click, New -> Shortcut). Just type in the path to the conf.

2) As Lord_Kane says, just copy the WAD files to the source port installation folder and it should work fine, but some do search for the GOG or Steam installations if you have them installed.

I just looked at the GOG shortcut and its target is set to:
"D:\GOG Galaxy\Games\DOOM\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" -conf "..\dosbox_doom.conf" -conf "..\dosbox_doom_single.conf" -noconsole -c exit

So, why does it only add doom and doom_single conf files if there are three other conf files (doom_client, doom_server, doom_settings)? Are those not needed?

How can the -conf commands work with a partial target ("..\dosbox_doom.conf") how does the shortcut know what "..\" is?

And what about that "-noconsole -c exit"? What's that?

See https://doomwiki.org/wiki/How_to_download_and_run_Doom

Looks like the server and settings confs are managed by a GOGDOSConfig.exe program. Other than that, a Windows shortcut includes data about the current working directory it should be run inside, which allows relative paths like .. to work.

I feel that this all comes down to how much you want to learn about DOSBox and file paths in Windows and whether you are willing to start tweaking the files and such, or just to be able to run the game.

Firstly, the GOG shortcut is generated from the folder path you chose to use when installing the game from the GOG installer.

"D:\GOG Galaxy\Games\DOOM\DOSBOX\DOSBox.exe" is the path to the DOSBox executable. The rest of the shortcut are the command line parameters to be used. You can find out about these here:
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Usage#Command_Line_Parameters

In the Windows command line you can specify the current folder with a dot and the folder one level up with double dot. This is for using relative paths instead of absolute paths. So ..\ will look in the folder one level higher than the current folder.

GOG's DOSBox games often come with multiple sets of conf files as they are used for different purposes. They usually have a main settings one (in this case dosbox_doom.conf) that is always called as it sets up the video, sound and other settings to allow the game to run. Then the others are for whether you want to run the game as single player, or to host the server of a multiplayer environment or be a client of a multiplayer server. The conf files can easily be edited by the tool that GOG provide with the installation, GOGDOSConfig.exe, as mentioned by chungy, so when you use this tool it should edit the settings conf file accordingly and also switch which of the other conf files to use depending on how you want to play the game.

Hi, sorry for the late reply, you pretty much cleared up everything, thanks!