Here is a well kept secret that all Windows NT users should know about. A little known British company has developed a product that is best described as the system component Microsoft left out of Windows NT and Windows 2000. The product, SoundFX, provides virtualized sound device support for MS-DOS programs running under Windows NT. Yes, this includes games also.

One thing to know about is that SoundFX does appear to have problems on multiprocessor machines: DOS applications that play back digitized sound shut down at random. However, the problem can apparently be solved by assigning the NTVDM to a specific processor using the Processor Affinity dialog in Windows NT Task Manager. This workaround has allowed me to play one of my all time favorite games, Lands of Lore, without any problems.