[gcutler]

I moved the DVD player off my PII/450 with Win98 (The one that gets replaced with the Dell 8200) and put it in the PIII/1000 in my "lab". There is no DVD software that came with the OS and I went out to CNET. There were some nice DVD player SW out there but the really good ones seemed to blow up in 30 days, or would only play 5 minutes of anything until registered.

Anyone have a recommendation for a Freeware/Shareware DVD player that runs under Win2000 Pro. I downloaded Maximus DVD 1.2 and wasn't very impressed with it. Or if registering is the only way to go, is there one you guys like?

 

[gcutler]

Well that explains it

Something will come with the new PC, but was looking for something good as an alternative.

 

[gcutler]

Here is one for the the stored away anecdotes.

Got my Dell machine 2 days ago, blew away XP Home and repartitioned and reinstalled (just something I do with any machine I ever get). Well it didn't ask me for an Activation key. So I'm searching MS KB and all leads tell me that the install didn't go right and in order to not end up with a dead OS in 30 days I need to fix a bunch of problems. None of them work and last resort is to do a reinstall again (after I have gotten all my legacy HW and SW working). So I do it again and No Activation key again, etc.

So now I decide to look at the Dell KB and look what I find...

http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=1053642

Not every version of XP out there requires you to do the activation key. Dell's custom XP cds will do it for you automatically if you have the CD boot...

Well I guess the 2nd time around I installed the system .005% more to my liking, so it wasn't a total waste. :grin:

Most of my old SW and Hardware work fine, either it was just recognized and worked or needed one XP friendly patch.

Right now only thing not working is my old DOS games Steel Panthers and Steel Panthers 2. Will have to investigate those, but talk is that it may be time to retire those 1994-95 games

:computer:

 

[TNGTony]

There is a program out there called ZDoom. It's an emulator that turns 16 bit games that wont run on XP into 32 bit games that will. This program works on all games that use the ID engine. There are other similar emulators out there too. Works like a charm on the original Heretic, Doom, Doom 2, Blake Stone and Wolfenstein. It gives you some 3d functionality as well.

See ya
Tony

 

[gcutler]

I found some How-Tos (especially with Steel Panthers and SP2), still having to tweak them. Never thought I would need a "Dos VM Emulator" in a Windows "Home" product