Installing Borland C++ on dosBox: The solution for “too many subdirectories press esc”

On the article in which I gave some steps for installing Borland C++ on Windows 8 by using dosBox, I didn’t mention that there is one error which can occur on the installation process. So far I noticed it myself on Windows 8 Pro 64 bit edition, but one of my readers also pointed it out through a comment.

Error reason

So, this error has something to do with the number of subdirectories within the installation source drive. As the user said:

after hitting the start installation , dos box shows a message: “too many subdirectories press esc” and can´t install c++ , i use windows 8 64 bits

Because in my previous article I recommended using the C drive as the installation drive as well, I didn’t consider the repercussions of this fact. Windows 8 has a lot of folders from the native installation. When the original Borland C++ dos installer starts searching for the necessary files, it will automatically try to see the contents of the other folders within the drive.

Borland C++ was programmed to be installed from floppy drives and they didn’t have as many folders as the current C: drive of Windows 8 (if the C drive is the Windows driver as well). That’s why we get errors like this.

The solution for “too many subdirectories”

To solve this issue, I put the c++ installation kit on an empty drive or on a drive poor in contents (less folders). Then I started Dosbox and mounted the drive as A: (the default drive letter for the floppy drives on early computers or operating systems). After that I followed the same steps described in my previous article.


Upon the emulated installation process, I let drive A as the source and drive C as my Windows folder, and continued as usual.

Because my source drive only had the BC installation kit, the error did not occur anymore, and I could start coding in a matter of minutes.

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