MSCDEX.EXE FILE
 

-----Original Message-----
WHILE ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL A NEW CD ROM, THE FLOPPY
BOOTS INTO A DOS LOOKING SCREEN, THEN FINDS ALL FILES
NECESSARY FOR INSTALLATION OF THE CDROM EXCEPT
MSCDEX.EXE.
I PUT XP DISK IN CD RW, WHICH IS SETUP, BUT COULDN'T
ACCESS TO SEARCH FOR FILE. ALSO TRIED OPENING 'INSTALL
NEW HARDWARE' BUT GOT SAME NO MSCDEX FILE, SO NEW CD ROM
CAN'T INSTALL? ANY IDEAS?
THANK YOU
ED
.

Ed,
Sounds like you have an install floppy that is setting up
for DOS, as mentioned in the other reply, XP has drivers
for CD-ROMs. Even when old DOS era software was on a CD,
the CD was all that was required to install it, some
titles might have bundled CD and floppies together in
a "Special Edition" package or something.
MSCDEX.EXE was needed to access the CD-ROM under DOS, or
thru a DOS prompt in Windows9x and up. Sometimes Windows
will "help" DOS negotiate the lack of the MSCDEX.EXE in a
windowed DOS box/Command Prompt mode(W9x-XP). DOS, W3.1,
and even some Win95-98 games are tricky or impossible to
run under XP, my examples are the Discworld games, DW2
[W95]/DW3 Noir[W98]), Robinson's Requeim (Dos and W3.1)
and Deus the sequel(Dos, W3.1, and W95, and Aquanox
required a patch to run under XP. As a side note, I've
run games as old as Space Quest 4 on XP and a few older
ones like The Two Towers, circa the late 80's, aside
from an opening menu issue, it plays well. So if it's old
software(esp. games), beware it might not like XP as its
master, either from basic OS incompatibility or the
inability to setup the correct sound drivers, where
you'll get no sound or be forced to select PC speaker,
although I've seen proof of XP actually picking up on an
old game sending sound incorrectly and rerouting it
correctly to your soundcard, but the same game would't
run sound under 98.

Sadler2010