I've been running the BBS on a 20 year old P4 running Windows 7 32 bit. Its been running 24/7 for just over 3 years. But one of these days I have a felling it's going to die sooner than later. So I am considering moving the BBS over to a newer computer running Windows 10 64 bit. I know that i will have to use NTVDMx64 and DOSBox for the doors.

I'd like to hear from some folks that are or have ran Mystic in windows 10 64 bit. Using 32 bit window makes Doors fairly eay to run. Are there any headaches or anything I need to know before I decide to make the switch?

Thanks

|02-=|10Cozmo|02=-

... The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

I've been running the BBS on a 20 year old P4 running Windows 7 32 bit. Its been running 24/7 for just over 3 years. But one of these days I have a felling it's going to die sooner than later. So I am considering moving the BBS over to a newer computer running Windows 10 64 bit. I know that i will have to use NTVDMx64 and DOSBox for the doors.

I'd like to hear from some folks that are or have ran Mystic in windows 10 64 bit. Using 32 bit window makes Doors fairly eay to run. Are there any headaches or anything I need to know before I decide to make the switch?

If you're going to Win10 and not Win11, why not go with a 32 bit system or at least a VM? I run a 64 bit host and 32 bit guest for my BBS, but I'm not running Mystic. It makes running door really easy as you mentioned...

---
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp)
(ports 22, 23, 110, 21, 119) (ssh: login bbs password shsbbs)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

If you're going to Win10 and not Win11, why not go with a 32 bit system
or at least a VM? I run a 64 bit host and 32 bit guest for my BBS, but I'm not running Mystic. It makes running door really easy as you mentioned...

So you're running 64 bit Windows host and 32 bit windows in the VM?
And that works out for you?

So I can run 32 bit win10 on a 64 bit machine and it will run the doors without using NTVDMx64?

|02-=|10Cozmo|02=-

... What does it mean to pre-board? Do you get on before you get on?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

* In a message originally to Shurato, Cozmo said:

If you're going to Win10 and not Win11, why not go with a 32 bit

system

or at least a VM? I run a 64 bit host and 32 bit guest for my BBS,

but

I'm not running Mystic. It makes running door really easy as you mentioned...

So you're running 64 bit Windows host and 32 bit windows in the VM?
And that works out for you?

So I can run 32 bit win10 on a 64 bit machine and it will run the doors without using NTVDMx64?

Yes, I use VMWare Workstation Player. VirtualBox or Hyper-V under Windows should work just as well. You could just run Windows 10 32 bit by itself on
a 64 bit machine, but then you'd be limited to 3Gb of RAM, which would be considered a waste, so I run it as a VM with however many processors you want to spare.

---
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp)
(ports 22, 23, 110, 21, 119) (ssh: login bbs password shsbbs)


---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

If you're going to Win10 and not Win11, why not go with a 32 bit

system

or at least a VM? I run a 64 bit host and 32 bit guest for my BBS,

but

I'm not running Mystic. It makes running door really easy as you mentioned...

So you're running 64 bit Windows host and 32 bit windows in the VM?
And that works out for you?

So I can run 32 bit win10 on a 64 bit machine and it will run the doors without using NTVDMx64?

As long as you're not highly limited on RAM, this shouldn't be an issue.

---
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp)
(ports 22, 23, 110, 21, 119) (ssh: login bbs password shsbbs)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

On 01 Apr 2024, Cozmo said the following...

know that i will have to use NTVDMx64 and DOSBox for the doors.

the point of NTVDMx64 is that DOS programs (including doors) will "just work," just like you've been doing on your Windows 7 machine.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

Yes, I use VMWare Workstation Player. VirtualBox or Hyper-V under
Windows should work just as well. You could just run Windows 10 32 bit
by itself on a 64 bit machine, but then you'd be limited to 3Gb of RAM, which would be considered a waste, so I run it as a VM with however many processors you want to spare.

That certainly gives me some options and I'll have to decide which way I want to go. I would probably choose between running a VM or just going with 64bit and using NTVDM64.

|02-=|10Cozmo|02=-

... Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

the point of NTVDMx64 is that DOS programs (including doors) will "just work," just like you've been doing on your Windows 7 machine.

What are the advantages or disavantages of running 64bit and NTVDM64 and running 32 bit in a VM?

|02-=|10Cozmo|02=-

... What was the best thing before sliced bread?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

Cozmo wrote to fusion <=-

What are the advantages or disavantages of running 64bit and NTVDM64
and running 32 bit in a VM?

32 bit OSes can only access 4 GB of RAM, usually a bit less due to
overhead. If you have a bare metal system with over 4 GB, a 32-bit OS
won't be able to use it.

With a 64-bit OS and NTVDM64, you can use all of the memory in your
system while still running 16-bit DOS apps.

The third option people mentioned is to run a 64 bit OS for your "host"
OS, and then run a 32-bit virtual machine inside of that host using
VMWare Workstation/Player, VirtualBox or a number of other
technologies.

You then have a 64 bit system that you can use for your own purposes,
and a virtual 32-bit system running the BBS inside of the host system.
You have a virtual 32-bit computer running in a window.

Option 3 offers a lot of benefits, but it does take some doing to work.



... Wi-Fi cannot travel through smoke.
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

32 bit OSes can only access 4 GB of RAM, usually a bit less due to overhead. If you have a bare metal system with over 4 GB, a 32-bit OS won't be able to use it.

With a 64-bit OS and NTVDM64, you can use all of the memory in your
system while still running 16-bit DOS apps.

The third option people mentioned is to run a 64 bit OS for your "host" OS, and then run a 32-bit virtual machine inside of that host using
VMWare Workstation/Player, VirtualBox or a number of other
technologies.

You then have a 64 bit system that you can use for your own purposes,
and a virtual 32-bit system running the BBS inside of the host system.
You have a virtual 32-bit computer running in a window.

Option 3 offers a lot of benefits, but it does take some doing to work.

Originally I was thinking of going with 64bit OS and NTVDM64. My main concern was if NTVDM64 would run 16 bit doors without any issues. But I like the idea of a VM running 32 bit.

Something to think about

|02-=|10Cozmo|02=-

... Honk if you love peace and quiet!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

On 02 Apr 2024, Cozmo said the following...

the point of NTVDMx64 is that DOS programs (including doors) will "ju work," just like you've been doing on your Windows 7 machine.

What are the advantages or disavantages of running 64bit and NTVDM64 and running 32 bit in a VM?

if it were me personally i think i'd go with the Win11+NTVDM64 setup. i don't know that it's worth the effort to configure VMs if the machine is only for
the BBS anyways.

both of these are equivalent if you're only using the machine for the BBS. mystic will never use the 3.5gb of ram nor would it use 8, 16 or more. it's wasted. probably with a web server and an ircd and who knows what else you'd still have a surplus of ram.

the only relevant thing i can think of is that you could move the VM between computers easily (since it's just basically a hard disk image and some metadata)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)

Re: Re: Mystic and windows10
By: fusion to Cozmo on Tue Apr 02 2024 07:34 pm

if it were me personally i think i'd go with the Win11+NTVDM64 setup. i don't know that it's worth the effort to configure VMs if the machine is only for
the BBS anyways.

Just a head's up that while I found NTVDMx64 to work "pretty well" on Win10, on Windows 11, it caused some major issues:
https://github.com/leecher1337/ntvdmx64/issues/240

... so I kind of gave up on using NTVDMx64 on Win11 at least for the time being. If the system is *only* used for the BBS, the perhaps those side effects aren't a big deal, but just being unable to install Chrome (as one example) is pretty much a non-starter for me.
--
digital man (rob)

Rush quote #54:
He'd love to spend the night in Zion, he's been a long, long while in Babylon Norco, CA WX: 73.2°F, 40.0% humidity, 8 mph W wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

fusion wrote to Cozmo <=-

the only relevant thing i can think of is that you could move the VM between computers easily (since it's just basically a hard disk image
and some metadata)

One thing people haven't mentioned in the Windows 10/32 versus Windows 11/64/NTVDM versus virtual machine is portability. And Snapshots.

You can move the data files to another machine by copying a folder to
the other machine. And once the VM is running, some hypervisors support snapshots of filesystems, so you can make a backup of a running system
before making changes.



... Pluto is the roman god of tax evasion.
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

On 01 Apr 2024, Cozmo said the following...

So you're running 64 bit Windows host and 32 bit windows in the VM?
And that works out for you?

So I can run 32 bit win10 on a 64 bit machine and it will run the doors without using NTVDMx64?

You can install Virtual Box, or any of the Virtual machine programs and run a 32bit version of Win 10 in that while the main OS of the computer is Win 10 64 bit.. I did it for a couple of years. The main computer ran Window 10 64 bit and Virtual Box ran a VM of Win 10 32bit, I wasn't running doors on it although I could have. I wasn't running doors because I had a Door Server built on Synchronet in another VM of Win 10 32bit..

... Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)

You can install Virtual Box, or any of the Virtual machine programs and run a 32bit version of Win 10 in that while the main OS of the computer
is Win 10 64 bit.. I did it for a couple of years. The main computer ran Window 10 64 bit and Virtual Box ran a VM of Win 10 32bit, I wasn't running doors on it although I could have. I wasn't running doors
because I had a Door Server built on Synchronet in another VM of Win 10 32bit..

That's most likely what I'll do. Doors seem to run so well using 32 bit OS.
I'm running the BBS on Windows 7 32 bit and doors seem to run without any issues.

Thanks for the reply!

|02-=|10Cozmo|02=-

... Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

On 24 Apr 2024, Cozmo said the following...

That's most likely what I'll do. Doors seem to run so well using 32 bit OS. I'm running the BBS on Windows 7 32 bit and doors seem to run
without any issues.

No sweat.. It's the easiest way to go, and you can keep running Windows 7 if you want in a VM also..

Al

... Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your trip in kilometers

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)