I've tried to get this to work under Windows 7 ... I really did. After quite a bit of DLL and update hunting, converting back to an ISO, combining with KeeperFX and so on and so forth I've had no luck at all. It starts, but that's about it. After a scrambled splash screen it either hangs or quits (depending on version).

This is more and more becoming the norm for GOG games as more Windows95-era games are added: Of course the DOS version works through DOSBOX, but it's often an inferior version (for example, now that EA is on board, we can really only expect 320x200 resolution Command & Conquer as the 640x400 version was only available for Windows95).

So, I've been thinking... back in the day, when I was younger and more adventurous, I used to run most of my games through Wine on Linux... it usually took a bit of fiddling, but more often than not, the games would eventually run. According to WineDB, Dungeon Keeper won't on the official version, but there's a patch that could be applied at http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3542 . So it might be possible (and it would be great if anyone who is still regularly using Linux could verify it). And while distributing Windows95 is very, very, very likely impossible for GOG, Linux+Wine wouldn't be an issue.

So, could anybody test this on Linux with the Windows95 version? (I've got the missing DLLs here which are needed aside from the binaries included in the official patches, just say the word and I'll put them up). If it is working, DSL should be enough as a base-Linux, but what about the emulator? QEmu would work, but it's not exactly the fastest emulator around... any recommendations?

Linux+Wine+Emulator is likely more than GOG wants to have to support. You could maybe use DosBox as the emulator (it can boot non-Dos OSes) but that doesn't make it much simpler.

From the interview at dosbox.com what GOG wants is "Windows 3.1 emulation/support" (win16) built into DosBox. I doubt that anyone at DosBox is working on this though.

Wine's "Wine on Windows" hack project would be interesting but that's far from functional.

Another hypothetical possibility would be to take the 32bit branch of wine (as compared to the 64bit branch) and do a minimalist port to DOS. Port/re-implement just enough of the 32-bit branch to enable 16-bit emulation inside the 32bit environment (there is no 16-bit branch of wine). Then you could run 16-bit games in Wine, in DosBox.

[I'm not quite crazy enough to attempt this. Maybe if GOG offered to hire me to do this I'd be crazy enough to agree - it would be close. Either way I'm not entirely sure that this is within my programming ability. Then again I'm not entirely sure it's out side of my programming ability...]

As for your personal use, see if you can download/install XP mode with your version of Windows 7. I always thought it was PRO/Ultimate feature but Microsoft's website suggested to me that you could get it for any version of Windows 7.

I'm actually on Win7 Pro, but (long story short) the compat mode introduces more problems than it solves. You have a VM which tries to integrate itself into the host OS, thereby introducing all kinds of issues into the guest OS and in the end you really have a gigantic ball of crap for anything but very simplistic applications. The drivers, the input, the file system... nothing really works the way you want it to.

As for Linux... well, you could just take stock components for a test run: QEMU+DSL+Wine.... it would certainly be easier than porting Wine to Windows (as far as I remember all porting was based on Cygwin+a Windows X server anyway) or DOS (you'd basically have to port the Linux Kernel).

A while back I tried a couple of games with CoLinux and it worked to a certain degree... but of course that still needs a separate X server and that spells trouble... better one VM to rule them all instead of trying to integrate different components with the host OS (see Win7 compat mode commentary for reasons why).

There is a cleaner way. "Start->All Programs->Windows Virtual PC->Windows XP Mode" opens the VM of XP (doesn't automatically open an application, doesn't try to integrate with windows 7 as much). From there just click the desktop icon for what you want to run. Basically your left with a just a pure VM of XP (which works fine for all my 16-bit needs). Yes you absolutely could. Like I said earlier though I doubt GOG wants to have to support three new (to them) technologies. So as personal solution this would work. As a GOG solution it would likely be rejected. Biggest problem with CoLinux in my mind is that it doesn't work on 64bit windows. If your already running 32bit windows, then you should already have 16bit support.

That was back on my old Laptop with 32-bit Windows, now I'm on 64bit... anyway, DungeonKeeper/95 is a real 32bit application, so that isn't the problem.
P.S. About support: That's the beautiful thing about emulators isn't it? In fact that's the main reason I'm suggesting it... you don't need to support anything but the emulator itself: The guest OS doesn't care about any libs on the host system (or devices for that matter). You just set it up once and it works anywhere the emulator works.

Lets see...

I've downloaded a demo from http://www.keep erklan.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4. On 64bit Win7 I get an "Unsupported 16-bit Application" error running the installer. So the installer is 16bit, the game itself could still be 32 bit.

Starting up my XP VM via "Start->All Programs->Windows Virtual PC->Windows XP Mode"...

Installer works on my XP VM.

Trying to run the game, it flashes up a black screen then closes.

Switching the VM to fullscreen mode and trying again... same thing.

Setting program compatibility to win95 mode... same thing.

Started program via command prompt hoping for an error message... no message.

Took a read over readme file. It states that directx 3 is required. Try running dxconfig... not found. Time to install a copy of direct on the VM I guess.

Installed DX and restarted... same thing.

Turned off win95 mode... same thing.

I'm taking far too great an interest in this... Yes it simplifies OS compatibility. Only the emulator has to be compatable with whatever version of windows the user is running.

You still have to support the game and any technologies your using (Wine) however. It's just that you only have to support them on one OS - Linux in this case.

Unfortunately this still leaves GOG having to support what ever emulator they chose plus Linux plus Wine.

EDIT:
For the heck of it I copied the "installed" demo out of my XP VM to Win7. It works...

There are serious color issues however. Setting run in 256 colors doesn't help.

So to summarize... It work doesn't work on XP. It works on Windows 7. It likely works on Vista (kernel is closer to win7 than XP).

Just need to ask GOG to work some of their magic to fix the color issues, then convince them to drop XP support.

Try killing explorer.exe and running through the task manager... don't ask me why, but for some reason this VERY often fixes palette issues.

P.S. I didn't run the setup.... I just got the files from the patch (which is extractable through WinRAR) then hunted down the missing DLLs