DOSBox 0.7.4 and .conf files on Windows 7

[Dogbreath]

I had a problem .conf file problem that stumped me for several hours, I wrote (but never posted) this to describe my problem, though I figured out what my problem was when I looked everything over one last time:

It's been a while since I've had time for playing DOS games, but I recently got back into Dungeons of the Unforgiven, so I downloaded DOSBox 0.7.4. It takes a little bit of extra work to get it running, and so I created my own .conf file. Options are a little different, but otherwise everything is hunky dory so far.

I go into my DOTU folder (c:\games\unforgiv), make a shortcut to dosbox there, and also save my edited conf file there as "unforgiv.conf". Then I edit the properties of the dosbox shortcut to read thusly: "C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox\DOSBox.exe" -conf "c:\games\unforgiv\unforgiv.conf"

For whatever reason, the shortcut will launch dosbox just fine, but it won't use my special .conf file. It just ignores it. I know all the settings in that .conf file are correct, because when I make them the default dosbox options, the game runs flawlessly.

So what exactly am I doing wrong? I'm assuming it's some ridiculously stupid mistake, but after reading through the manual and the VOGONS forum for 2 hours, I can't for the life of me figure out what.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) on an Intel Celeron processor.
I've tried removing and adding the quotation marks. ("")
I've tried moving the .conf file around.
I'm the administrator account on this machine.

Any advice on how to fix this?

Here's what my problem was: when I opened "dosbox 0.7.4 options" and edited it to create my new conf file, I then clicked "save as" and typed "unforgiv.conf" and selected "c:\games\unforgiv" as my target folder. And so a file named "unforgiv.conf" appeared in my DOTU folder. What I didn't realize until after 2 and a half hours of trouble shooting was, the dosbox options file opens dosbox.conf in notepad, and then automatically saves anything you create as a text file. So really, unforgiv.conf was actually unforgiv.conf.txt, and Windows 7 ever so helpfully suppressed the actual file type. To fix this, I had to open the file, then change the "save as type" tab to "all files" for Windows to actually acknowledge the ".conf" modifier. I wanted to post this here in the hopes it might pop up for anyone else Googling the problem, so they won't have to spend hours pulling out their hair like I did.

TL;DR Windows 7 Home sucks balls.

[Larry Laffer]

On this note, I'd like to point out the forever useful option to show extensions for known file types, which is accessible in Folder Options under Tools in any explorer window.

[dosraider]

Was already the same @#@#@# shit in XP.
Luckily there are enough freeware replacements for notepad floating around TeH internet. Some add a lot of extra, but I prefer those who go back to the roots, the simpler the better.

On a side note, I rarely use complete custom conf files, I usually use a batch file to launch games with specific settings.
And as I'm such an ol'dinosaur I still use FreeDos's EDIT directly @ the dosbox prompt to write them things.....