There is somethinng I don't understand.
When launching Dosbox you can select from where take the config file, where to set the working directory, then I'm asking why I havve on my HD more than 40 copies of dosbox.exe files.
Wasn't a better idea to set the galaxy server to create a single dosbox directory and then launch the games using it and the settings fron the singles games directory?
This way I can change my standard copy of dosbox in my system to work with the same copy, but with my personal settings...
Ok, it's not a big disk space consuming issue, but can ease many symple things on a single hard disk.
Actually when a disk checkask for a dosbox.exe issue I dunno where I have to take it... :P
I've tried to configure it myself, but after any update all is reverted back to old way...

Each game comes with dosbox built into it.But that does seem a strange way to setup Galaxy.I would contact support and see if they can solve this.

I'm not a DOSBOX guru, but I think having multiple copies (with each game, essentially), allows you to simply copy a game installation folder and play the game on any PC you choose, via a thumb drive, external hard drive, etc. I think you would lose that capability if there was just a single location for the DOSBOX files - unless that other PC just happened to have DOSBOX installed in the same folder. And even then, you would not have your personal settings. Unless you had the installer place the game on the removal drive, so that one folder also went on the removable drive? Maybe? Not sure.

Whether or not that capability is useful for you, that's a whole other matter. I don't use it, but I'm pretty sure there are others here who do. It's a trade-off.

Not really. You can simply copy the game directory AND the dosbox directory and play it anyway.
You just need to know what game need the dosbox program.
You just need to set the directory path inserting a ..\ before the DOSBOX path in the config file.
I've did it and it has work perfectly, but it has been deleted when an update overwrite has revert all my editing

The settings file is saved in the game directory, so you will copy it in your next copied directory and if the settings file is set correctly you can play anywhere, you just need to have a dosbox directory in the same path you copy the game/s.
The main advantage is that you can fill a flash pen without having to copy multiple dosbox issue, that, for games that need dosbox, are a bit expensives in disk usage terms...

Because each installer stands alone. It's much easier to write and support the installer when you know the version of dosbox and where it is installed for every game. Might be easier to support cross platform installs too. Then they probably just cut-n-paste the common installer code for every dosbox. This method also makes changing dosbox versions for individual games easier too.

Because when they test a game on GOG, they're testing it with a very specific version of DOSbox and once they get it working in a supportable state, it works - and there is no reason to update it under the principle "if it isn't broke, don't fix it". That's what they ship and support for that game.

When the upstream DOSbox software gets an update, that update might provide some new features or enhancements which may improve the experience of the software, and it may provide new features or even work with some new games it didn't work with before, but it also may cause games that used to work on a previous version to stop working, or to require their configuration be changed in order to work right.

If GOG supplied one single central version of DOSbox which they made every single game work with, then they would have to test and certify every single game with that one single version of DOSbox and either never update it again, or every time a new DOSbox version was released they would have to painstakingly re-test every single game in the catalogue that uses DOSbox against the new version of DOSbox and make sure that there are no regressions. If there are regressions, they would have to spend engineering resources to fix the problems by changing the game's configuration or the DOSbox configuration for that game, or even possibly hacking the game's executables to get them to work again.

The amount of engineering and quality assurance testing and support overhead on GOG's side of the equation to maintain one single version of DOSbox across the entire game catalogue of games that use it is thus rather untenable. From a support perspective it makes sense to provide the best version of DOSbox they've been able to get the game to work with along with the game and certify that as the official DOSbox+game combination that they both provide and support. Should a new version of DOSbox come along that works much better with a game and they discover this or are informed of it by someone, they may retest that individual game out with the newer version of DOSbox and issue an update, but they're very unlikely to constantly release new versions of DOSbox for every game that uses it in the catalogue, nor to reconfigure all games to use one centralized version of DOSbox as that would be a support nightmare.

As for all the disk space 40 copies of DOSbox use, it is a very small program that uses negligible disk space overall compared to the size of modern hard disks. From a business perspective it makes more sense to provide a supportable product in a known working state that doesn't change, than to try to ship DOSbox separately and have each game that uses it dependent on one single version guaranteed to work with every single game they ship all the time - just to save a few megabytes of disk space.

If an individual customer wants to install their own custom version of DOSbox and reconfigure every single game to use that one version, and to take on the ownership of any technical problems that causes and fix them themselves, thus supporting all of the games themselves, all the power to them, but it isn't something that scales well to run a sustainable business on. The person who does this themselves isn't on the receiving end of customer support emails and complaints every time DOSbox is updated, with incoming complaints of "GOG updated DOSbox which was WORKING, and now it is BROKEN for game xyz!!! WHY???"

Stability and reliability of the shipped product are far more important than a few megabytes of wasted disk space.

By the way, I'd have sworn there was a list of GOG games using older or alternate builds of DOSBox out there somewhere, either on the forums or on GOGWiki, but I can't find it at either. Does anyone know where it is?

Some GOG installers do have the option of selecting your already-installed DOSBox. But that won't work with version 0.74 or higher of DOSBox.

I do.

List.
GOGmix.

The 'current' version of DOSBox is now seven (yes 7) years old. The development is dead, quite dead. Any programmers around that feel like doing some necromancy?

The dosbox program is so long stable and unupdated that to consider its version as a "variable" is... as to consider the earth dimension as variable in the next 3 seconds...
This will mean that the dosbox program, even if a simple and small program, can de a problem in specifics system corrections.
I have tried to fix a desktop icon automatically because I have moved the dosbox program from c:\programs to c:\gametools and it has taken the dosbox exe inside one of the games in GOGgalaxy directory instead.
Ok, tis is a stupid issue, but can be an alarm on future problems if you go on using 40 and more programs with the same name in a single hard disk.
Setting the "setup" with galaxy as an installer that add 2 directory, the first as DOSBOX and the second as NAMEGAME under the GOG Galaxy/games directory will ease the game usage.
After all this let player install games even in a reduced HD as a 8 or 16 GB flashpen saving lot of space instead of using the 10 megabytes for each program. Multiply it for 40-50 different games and half GB is filling your drive for absolutely no reasons...

We already told this to Gog many times, but they still prefer a standalone solution, even if it consists in duplicating Dosbox 500 times. :\

. They'd just need a simple check during installation:
- is Dosbox NN installed? YES= use that NO= install\copy
- does this game need a custom config? YES=run Dosbox with it NO= use the existing one

So far the most portable option for me has been to use DBGL and put the games on it's dosroot folder, this way the settings don't use any absolute paths that need to be fixed if the launcher is moved.

Of course I only learned of that after I had manually configured far too many games to work from another location, so after building a new PC I had to start it all over again.

No need for it.
Dosbox program used in all the programs I have installed are using the same version of dosdox, the last one existing.
They made setup install it on 1 directory in the main games directory and made setup overwrite/skip the files as they like better.
The setup dont need any check, just write the dosbox dir in the main games dir, then let it go.
Only answer needed is yes or no when there is an existing file.
Having the dosbox directory totally the same for each game, overwrite or not it give the same result, after all...

It isn't a technical problem, it is a supportability problem. It's not that they're incapable of providing one DOSbox that all games use, it's that they don't have the manpower or desire to support every version of DOSbox that comes out on every game they sell that uses DOSbox because that isn't sustainable and would put a greater burden on their technical support department. Furthermore when someone does have a problem with a game, they'll see it as a problem with the game, not with the fact that they changed the version of DOSbox to a different one from the one GOG supplied and tested the game on and just blame the problem they're having on the game, possibly even wanting a refund or whatever - when they themselves may have caused the problem by using a version of DOSbox that was untested and which introduced some kind of regression.

The way GOG ships it now is all about quality control. Wasted disk space is negligible and not a concern for all but the smallest number of customers, who are capable of reconfiguring it on their own if they wish. I very highly doubt that GOG will ever offer an option to support a single DOSbox shared across all games due to this problem, and also due to the extremely small minority of people who even know or care about it.