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/ Genres / Strategy / WarCraft: Orcs & Humans

WarCraft: Orcs & Humans

DOS - 1994
Also available on: Mac

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans marked the beginning of Blizzard Entertainment’s now legendary gaming franchise. After Westwood’s Dune II, avid strategy gamers were waiting for a new game. Warcraft filled that spot immediately. The first Warcraft was well received with its great ambiance, sounds and interface, impressive cut scenes (a Blizzard characteristic) and a 2 player mode (through a modem or null-modem).

Released at a similar time to Westwood’s Command & Conquer, the two franchises would spend much of the late 1990’s competing. For those preferring fantasy settings over a modern military setting, Warcraft was obviously the preferred choice.

Set in the kingdom of Azeroth, the single player game revolves around commanding either a force of orcs or humans through a multi-mission campaign to rule the kingdom. The game features familiar real-time-strategy-game elements, including base building, and resource harvesting in order to build a force large enough to conquer the enemy and claim victory. However, all this must be carefully balanced with base defence as the enemy attacks are relentless, especially in later missions of the campaign. To add variety, there are also occasional missions where a limited number of troops are used to conquer an objective or rescue a character. At times these can be slightly frustrating, but they are thankfully few and far between.

On the downside, the single player mode is quite short, with each campaign only having 12 missions. The graphics are missing some colours, army management is a bit simple compared to Dune II and the control method is slightly cumbersome. Blizzard would address most of these issues in the sequel, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness but despite the minor downsides the original game is still a must-play though for all the Warcraft fans!

Review By Richard

How to Play

  1. Extract the image files and mount WAR1.mds using an application such as WinCDEmu
  2. Copy the contents of the ‘CD-ROM’ to a folder e.g. C:\OLDGAMES\TEMP
  3. In DOSBox mount the folder - ‘mount c c:\OLDGAMES’
  4. Then - ‘C:’ press ENTER
  5. Followed by ‘CD TEMP’ and press ENTER
  6. Run the installer – ‘INSTALL’ press ENTER
  7. Do a full Install using the default location (C:\WARCRAFT) and sound settings
  8. Run the game – ‘WAR’ press ENTER

The contents of the TEMP folder can now be deleted. To play in future simply use the DOSBox command ‘mount c c:\OLDGAMES\WARCRAFT’ followed by steps 4 and 8

Comments and reviews

Cleo 06 May. 2026

I don't want the remasterd versions. I want the game I played when I was a kid.

3
bro put it back 11 Sep. 2025

why do you make a vid and then a few years later you take the download out?? what is this for some kind of donation? ugh

0
HerpaDerpaBob 27 Aug. 2025

Wtf, can't download it or buy it on GOG.com. What is this crap?

1
Rockernator 13 Dec. 2024
Top comment

Now that it and Wacraft 2 have been removed from gog, are you going to put it back on for download?

12
nik 06 Apr. 2024

gog is worst trash ever, they pack game with dos box with incorect speed and mouse speed also off, best way to play this is to setup dos on PCem and install game from iso

1
Old Nerd Playing Old PC Games 08 Dec. 2023

WarCraft: Orcs & Humans Full playthrough on my channel:
https://youtu.be/rN7-TNuQ6rM

-1
nothappycamper 29 Oct. 2021

wow remonetising this after its been given out for free hardly seems legit at all!

3
stinger9898 08 Jun. 2021

is it even legal for them to charge for a game so old did they buy the copy rights or are then selling them without owning the ownership rights to sell wander what the developers thank being short changed like this

0
Tox 16 Feb. 2021

@LINKR: That's pretty much half the games on this site

0
Pontori 13 Jul. 2020

I hate GOG. I'm not buying anything from them anymore. Steam either. I'm going back to .iso, bitlord, and ghost drives.

4
LinkR 28 Mar. 2019

Kinda weird to see abandonware suddenly remonetized. It's like the parents of some orphan they abandoned suddenly decided they were worth keeping. Kinda fucked up when you think about it.

4
stefanw1337 11 Mar. 2019

Rumors are GOG are working on getting this to GOG, might not be abandonware for so much longer.

4
Tripod 02 Mar. 2019

Hours and Hours of Fun

1
DeathFromAbove 17 Feb. 2019

You need to download the Dos version and then install DosBox on Ubuntu.
Once DosBox has been configured, the original files will work like a charm.

1
Meliodas 13 Feb. 2019

sorry forgot to include a way to reach me. you can reach me at meliodasChronos@gmail.com

-2
Meliodas 13 Feb. 2019

Does anyone know how to download warcraft 1 and 2 for ubuntuu 16.04?

-6
Hank 20 Jan. 2019

Love all the old Warcraft games played em forever i think these were the best not saying Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne wasn't good it wasn't that hard but good for your collection thanks so much for all the games .

1
Ninjared 12 Dec. 2018

@NATAS: Yes, you have to reduce the cycles in Dosbox. For some reason, the War1 and War2 engines clock the game speed just fine, but the scroll speed is dependent upon the cycles. I don't know why, but it is.

0
Seth 03 Nov. 2018

Ra7ven could you make an Installer for Warcraft 2 BtDP?

0
Natas 18 Sep. 2018

Have never played a Dos Game in my life and I only wanted to play this game out of curiosity, luckily I was able to install DOSBox and the game without any trouble.
My only gripe is that the scroll speed when I move my mouse to the edge of the screen or using the arrow keys on my keyboard is ungodly fast. It makes it nearly impossible to navigate around the map since it takes like half a second to get from one edge of the map to the other.
Is there a way to fix this?

3
Trent 22 Jun. 2018

It is working great, all except for the screen is offset while playing, so I can't see anything on the left side of the game. Any ideas on how to fix this?

0
Ra7en 19 Jun. 2018
Top comment

Hey all, I made(make) 1 click installers for these games. This one is very popular. so just download, install and play. when done, comes with a full uninstaller. Hope this helps those that want to play but do not want to mess with goofy DOSBOX/config .ini files, mounting/unmounting etc.. None of the games are ripped - they full and complete.
Cheers!
Have Fun!!

8
Dave 06 May. 2018

thank you

0
sart 30 Mar. 2018

very nice ,Thx

0
Pecinta Game Retro 09 Mar. 2018

Very nice !!
Thank all.. :)

0
Space Man 100789 04 Jan. 2018

This Game Is Awesome It Will Always Be One Of My Favorite Strategy Games It is also one of my favorite games

-1
Pls Help 08 Dec. 2017

what´s the difference between the RIP and the ISO version?

-10
Kruz 14 Oct. 2017

Have made a step by step guide on how to install:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eyPWqhkmlo

0
Eugene 25 Sep. 2017

How to download?? can u give me a step by step?

-6
bob 21 Mar. 2017

What is the RIP version for DOS and why is it a tenth the size of the ISO?

-5
ChronoKatamie3 19 Dec. 2016

After reading the comments I saw people have a bit of a size problem may I offer you, a resolution, haha bad pun. Okay in windows right click dosbox then properties then compatablity then check the run in 640 x 480 option and it should run just fine

0
The alertArchitect 13 Oct. 2016

Is it possible to run any version of this game without a DOS emulator? They tend not to work well on my computers for some reason.

-24
mINONONO 22 Jul. 2016

Gerat game, will love to play again

2
EMI 04 Jul. 2016

I LIKE THE GAME BUT SOMETIMES WHEN I AM NOT ALERT THE OTHER CLAN ATTACK MY CLAN I LIKE THE ART

1
dimnugroho 22 Jun. 2016

Love this game!
I start to play this game after watching the movie, love Garona :)
Here is a tutorial video to install WARCRAFT 1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeSWOrdBJus

Enjoy :)

0
milk 22 Jun. 2016

whether the game appears tiny and centered or stretched to your screen, depends on your graphics card. I used several different laptops, some stretch smaller games, some keep them in original resolution, centered. Some stretch both height and width, some preserve the ratio. Sometimes it's easier to change these option, sometimes harder, but it has to be possible one way or another, so keep digging.

1
Rasande 19 Jun. 2016

I've successfully installed this game via DosBlaster and DosBox; however, since our monitors in this day of age are far greater than those from 1994, this game appears as a tiny spec on my screen. The game runs just fine except it's unplayable because I can't make the game any larger on my screen. I've tried dragging the corners and maximizing via the tiny square icon on the top right of the window. There are no in-game options to make this game full screen which was typical from games back them.

0
Rhodorn 12 Jun. 2016

"How do I get better resolution?"

lulz

-1
Jess 31 May. 2016

What're the differences between ISO and RIP files? Are they the same? ISO file is much larger than RIP file.

-10
Benjamin 30 May. 2016

I cant read the mdf file in daemon tools, it just says ''unable to acess image files''

any suggestions ?

-2
damion 05 May. 2016

Good I play it

-3
raziel 10 Mar. 2016

having trouble running the game...
what exactly is the process after download???

-6
ArgTem 10 Feb. 2016

It runs via dosblaster and dosbox, but SUPER SLOW. how do i speed it up? Also how to I get better resolution?

1
Del Rio 30 Jan. 2016

An absolute classic.
I was worried that this game may not have aged well and, while the controls will take some getting used to (if you're used to playing more modern RTSs) this is still worth your download.

The graphics still look fantastic, even after all these years. Bizzard has a really great comic book like art style that I just loved as a kid and still do today.

It's awesome to play both sides, orcs and Humans. They both play basically the same, but you get to see the story from each race's point of view.
When most people hear Warcraft, they think of the MMORPG, but I always go back to the original games, the real time strategy games that started it all.

The best part is IT'S FREE HERE. STOP READING COMMENTS AND DOWNLOAD IT YOU SILLYASS.

1
spongebobsquareass 04 Jan. 2016

what's the different between floppy disk ver. and cd rom ver.?

-7
AutheticGam3s 21 Nov. 2015

Plays Games

-5
bulo 20 Oct. 2015

How can I download it on my tablets

-22
ky minh le 13 Sep. 2015

good game

2
Huntersouls 30 Aug. 2015

why 470mb? i have same game with 7.62 mb have talk intro and videos, a sound work good in troops and game..only problem is when u see the letters of ur quest u dont listen narrator read but who cares...

3
ray24 28 Aug. 2015

Thanks bros!

0
gwapo 27 Aug. 2015

denmark

0
monte montera 10 Aug. 2015

15 years since i have played looking forward to play

0
Beerblaster 04 Jul. 2015
Top comment

@ Kirken

Thank you, had some troubles installing and your explanation made perfect sense and got it to work perfectly. :)

7
cty 02 Jul. 2015

I'm obviously to stupid to run old games on my computer. Using WIndows 7 32bit and none of the ways showed above worked for me. when typing install.exe (from Kirken's post) i get "illegal command" error when typing both case (in-) and sensitive.
When trying JLC420's way with using DOSBlaster, it cannot, by any means detect DOSBox's installation even after manually poining it in configuration window. It just keeps saying DOSBox not installed (it is installed, though..)
So i ended up with same result as by every other time i wanted to play war1 and war2 on my pc- only dreaming about it, never getting to work. can someone, please provide me with noob-friendly description, how to manage it to work on 32bit Windows7 OS? Thanks in advance.

3
moo king 10 Jun. 2015

hopefully i can save someone from similar frustration that i had with sound.
i had no issue with the music but the SFX sound was sooo broken was painful to listen to. turns out issue was dosbox pushing the CPU to the max (I`m relatively new to dosbox), the dosbox CPU option needs to be set to a fixed number (ex. fixed 2000) instead of on auto(which pushes it to max). using ctrl f11 f12 can work but not as precise, hope this helps

2
Warcake 04 Jun. 2015

Hey when I try to start warcraft it says that dosbox executeable is not foundand I have to download it when I already did and have it up plz help someone!?!

3
winton camacho 12 May. 2015

great game ....friends at school love it.
should make more.we play warcraft 3................

0
warrior_hamed 13 Apr. 2015

Thaaaaaaaaaanks!

-3
JusticeChampx 04 Feb. 2015

Como eu amo um RTS!!!

-2
chuhakhanh 30 Jan. 2015

I just remember the time playing with my old friend at his house. war1 and hero. The memories so beautiful.

0
Kirken 22 Dec. 2014
Top comment

sgjgh, the 427 MB ISO version works on PC.

1. Download the ISO version (MDF)
2. Mount (open) it with Daemon tools (or whatever you use for disc images)
3. Drag the files from the "CD" (mounted image) to a folder on your computer
4. Install Dosbox http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/
5. Drag and drop the folder from step 3 to the Dosbox icon
6. Type in "install.exe" and run the installer
7. For audio: set the "Select music sound card" to "General midi"
8. Then it's just dragging and dropping the installation folder to Dosbox and run "war.exe" when you want to play
9. Something
10. Profit!

21
sgjgh 21 Dec. 2014

It would be nice if you told people that the 400MB "ISO" image for "DOS" called warcraft-orcs-humans_dos_04d0.zip is NOT an ISO, it's actually an MDF format ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Descriptor_File ) of an Apple_HFS image...
It's WarCraft to run on an Apple computer, not on DOS on a PC.
To unpack it to find this out on Debian Linux I needed to install acetoneiso and download a further plugin it suggested, because mdf2iso couldn't even read it.
Thanks for wasting a couple of hours of my sleep time.

0
Maac 28 Nov. 2014

Esta super que buenisisisisisimo

1
redbaron865 10 Nov. 2014

Tried to get it to play, my system says that the .exe file is missing, anyone know what the problem is?

1
Simon 09 Nov. 2014

Does it even work?

0
acarrunto 07 Nov. 2014

I'm playing this but i wonder if it necesary to press the ctrl buttom everytime i want to create the box that selects my units. I read the manual and it didn't say anything, is there a problem in my dosbox?

1
T 19 Oct. 2014

make bigger - dos options- full resolution *make it your native resolution ex - 1680x1050 then "output put opengl" go down to aspect and make true. This will give you best results. Start game and push alt enter make full screen. Enjoy!

0
s39jd 14 Oct. 2014

gostaria de jogar warcraft11 novamente

0
moreno 13 Oct. 2014

How download Warcraft human orco

1
Neo 18 Sep. 2014

How do you make the size bigger

-2
NSMC 21 Aug. 2014

you know the only thing you need to do to get any dosbox game is just open the folder and drag the .exe file that is closest the game name on dosbox

0
Chris 13 Aug. 2014

human

-1
JLC420 23 Jul. 2014

If people are having trouble running the program such as I have had with DosBox, install dosblaster. it takes they annoyance out of DosBox. It only uses DosBox to run the game you don't need to mount a drive. I just make a folder called dos on the desktop and unzip each game into a separate folder within within it. Once you open DosBlaster, go to file - import game folder select folder **note to open the folder to see is the zip file had already created a folder sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't. Select the actual folder it self for instance:

In my Dos folder I created a separate folder call Theme Hospital. When I unzipped Theme hospital It created it's own folder inside that one. So in order for me to add theme hospital to my list of games In DosBlaster I just had to open the first folder labeled theme hospital and highlight the self create one. Select ok and wait a couple seconds for it to be added to the list Once added double-click then select the correct .exe or .bat file in order to run the game. May need to try a few in the list if more than 1 or 2.

I see Dosbox not mounting drive no matter how many times I have tried and came across this nice little program, DosBlaster.. It is pretty straight forward. Some games still will not work or require a disc still such as Capitalism. but the ones that I have found to work end up working on both x32 and x64.
Some games you don't need to use dosbox or any such program For instance again Theme hospital. Unzip to a folder you choose and just run the .exe (application). it may allow you or may not. before getting annoyed and resort to DosbBox change the compatibility settings and try again. All else fails then you need Dosbox.

0
carolinarocks28 20 Jul. 2014

hey this download doesn't work with the DOSBox or D-Fend Reloaded...I am using a HP with windows 8...I got oregon trail deluxe to work though..

if anyone has any hints you could email me if you want to help... hawk28_linkinparkisgod@yahoo.com

0
Woho 20 Jul. 2014

Nice ty!

0
OldGamesRocks 08 Jul. 2014

If you are not able to run the game, try to install "Dosbox" and "Dos shell"
They are dedicated to run old dos games on the new versions of windows.
Oh and spread the word to fellow lovers of old games.

0
Rockom 08 Jul. 2014

How can I run this on those new versions of windows?

-2
i love warcraft 07 Jun. 2014

Thanks you very mush

0
Tomson 12 May. 2014

Thank for oldgames

1
Murablo 30 Apr. 2014

Is this shareware or the full game?

0
Thunder29 29 Apr. 2014

I like Warcraft

0
dwar 26 Apr. 2014

dwar

-1
masi992 23 Apr. 2014

best game

0
joven 18 Apr. 2014

nice

1
tetsu 17 Apr. 2014

does it work? it wont give my laptop a virus will it?

0
Squiddy 12 Apr. 2014

The cutscene voices arent working for me. Can Anyone help? @squiddyG twitter

0
sweet 06 Apr. 2014

sweeter

0
ottersea 03 Apr. 2014

and the the addiction returns

0
jjpbird 23 Feb. 2014

omg i love this game i also remeber when it came out i also stayde up playin it dam

0
Richardsen 17 Feb. 2014

Works like a charm!

0
Punish 17 Feb. 2014

Cant wait

0
indstr 12 Feb. 2014

Man... I remember when the demo of this came out, I stayed up all night playing it. Awesome awesome memories. Ever since C&C/Starcraft era I don't really care about RTS games anymore, but the original Warcraft will always have a special place in my heart.

-2
Dragoneles 21 Jan. 2014

First game I ever played. /nostalgia

0
master 09 Jan. 2014

One of the best games ever published!!

0
Nadie 17 Dec. 2013

Esta bueno

0
frosztbyte 08 Dec. 2013

This is one of the *best* all-time game series of all, and *this* is the game that started it! Thank you SO much! It's my second favorite game series of all, and, being a game developer and playing games since 1984 at the age of 4, that's saying a lot! I just found this site and think I'm in L-O-V-E! Greetings to all and Happy Holidays! For the Horde! xP

1
JUKEBOX PRO 03 Dec. 2013

STARCRAFT BETTER

-2
Jonathan Palmer 09 Nov. 2013

try running the game through command prompt works for me on XP.

0
rx 22 Oct. 2013

eu gosto de warcraft

0
nicko 06 Oct. 2013

it says the program is not compatible with my windows version (windows 7 professional)

-2

No comment nor review for this game at the moment.

Comments posted on the beta are not kept. We delete them at 08:00 Paris time and they never reach the live site. Post on myabandonware.com if you want your comment to stay.

Buy on Digital Stores

WarCraft: Orcs & Humans is available for a small price on the following website, and is no longer abandonware.

Extras

Manual Manual 2
Extra file
DOS 2 MB English English
Extra file
Mac 2 MB English English

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