Running Word 5.5 for DOS on DOSBox

Microsoft has made Word 5.5 for DOS publicly available (Free! Legal!).  I guess this happened many years ago. You can download your copy here.

There is no 8086-based PC running in our apartment at the moment (check the link if in doubt). However DOSBox is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and even for OS/2! So I decided to give Word 5.5 for DOS a go. Follow these steps:

Phase 1

• Open Command Line in Windows
• Create a folder
• Download and extract Word for DOS
• Wd55_ben.exe a self-extracting package

Phase 2

• Download and install DOSBox
• In DOSBox mount your newly created folder with the following command:
• mount D c:\your_folder_name_here
• Move to your folder, find setup.exe and install Word 5.5 for DOS
• type in the following commands:
• D: and enter
• DIR and enter

Phase 3

• Move to folder where Word is installed
• It's a sub folder of your original folder
• Find WORD.EXE and execute it

Characters with dots (åäö) are available,

needed in Finland...

You can save files as RTF

Word 2016 Preview is able to open RTF created in Word 5.5