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I've been using Daemon Tools Lite, Cygwin with CDrecord or Power ISO for the better part of this decade now to get me what seems to have always been native under *NIX. It'll be nice to have such a feature, but just has useful it'll be in comparison to these other tools remains to be seen.

Retail discs don't fit in a netbook, and even if you do manage to copy the installer over the network using another PC's optical drive, the copy deterrence methods in most retail games requires a battery-sucking internal optical drive on the machine that runs the game, or at least a battery-sucking USB optical drive. So if you want to use your netbook to play commercial games, you need Steam.

Or a cd-rom emulator such as daemon tools, which will also minimize load times and rid one of the hassle of carrying and swapping multiple cd's/dvd's.

P.S. I dislike steam and copy-protection. :)

At which point you're back to spyware-infested.

Thanks. That's a useful start, and it's interesting to see who uses it on how many games. EA is apparently the worst, to no one's surprise. The link to this page on there is good, too, which includes a bunch of StarForce and SafeDisc stuff, among other things.

I find Linux more capable on the Desktop than Microsoft. There are often times when MS's (using XP) internal burning software is inadequate - like burning images. I don't know if it's fixed yet, but for a long time XP just would not burn an image with its built in software and you had to use something like Nero. Never had a problem burning an image running any linux distro. Same with mounting .iso right from the harddrive as a cd-rom. It usually required some pay-for software (Alcohol 120%) in Windows, while a 2 minute search yield a few command lines to do it in Ubuntu. I know I'd rather save the money.

A two minute search on Google yields CDBurnerXP as a freeware CD burning tool and Daemon tools as an image mounting tool for Windows.

It might not be free as in speech, but it sure is free as in beer.

Just google ffs Daemon Tools

I find Linux more capable on the Desktop than Microsoft. There are often times when MS's (using XP) internal burning software is inadequate - like burning images. I don't know if it's fixed yet, but for a long time XP just would not burn an image with its built in software and you had to use something like Nero. Never had a problem burning an image running any linux distro. Same with mounting .iso right from the harddrive as a cd-rom. It usually required some pay-for software (Alcohol 120%) in Windows, while a 2 minute search yield a few command lines to do it in Ubuntu. I know I'd rather save the money.

A two minute search on Google yields CDBurnerXP as a freeware CD burning tool and Daemon tools as an image mounting tool for Windows.

It might not be free as in speech, but it sure is free as in beer.

Note that Daemon Tools (warning: I'm not sure but I think they might have added ad-ware, though I think it's optional) has emulation of a bunch of different copy protection mechanisms built in that you can enable.

Instead of emulating the CD description, just copy the entire CD into a folder and either map a network drive to it, use daemon tools, or virtual drive creator. One of the tricks I use is to name the volume/drive the same as the CD's name and i've never had any problems.

Yeah, it's not like popular software does this (bundles toolbars) already. Give the guys a break, they're trying to make a little bit of money and you're not going to get much sympathy from anyone for blazing through an install process with "NEXT NEXT NEXT damn the text!" as the only thing running through your mind. They're providing you with a full free game, who are you to get pissy when they ask if you'd like to install this program alongside? Be thankful it's not the forced bundling that was all the craze not too long ago.

For those of you who are Googling "Demon Tools" right now and maybe not finding anything:

It's actually called Daemon Tools, and can be found at http://www.daemon-tools.cc/.

I use it, and it works wonders. I've never had it install any extra crapware like the parent mentioned, though admittedly I still use a slightly outdated version. Maybe the new releases come with crapware now, who knows...

dAemon tools http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php

You might be looking for this. The DRM that you complain of relies on some quality of the disc. That quality can be copied, emulate, or otherwise duplicated easily in skilled hands. So, yes, your counterexample is no counterexample at all. Other DRM systems fail for similar reasons, owing to the basic rules of math that underly the system.

As is usually the case, it isn't nearly as difficult under Windows as you imagine.

At the very least, ISO Buster shouldn't have any problems with it. There are many other utilities out there. I don't have an example with a screwed up IFO to test, but I suspect the popular freebie utility Daemon Tools could do it, too -- it would just treat the disc in the drive as an image.

I like to keep an image of games im playing frequently. If you have the space check out Daemon Tools at http://www.daemon-tools.cc/

What does this teach kids? It teaches them that to get what they want they need to download utorrent, go to sites like isohunt and learn how to use DAEMON Tools.

If the kid really wants GTA Cop Killa edition he's going to be able to get the game. If it's a little kid it's the parents who buy the game for him anyway, and if it's a bigger kid then after failing to get it from the store one of his friends is going to tell him about the things I mentioned above.

This is yet another law that targets innocent kids. People will say that the point of the law is to protect kids from the games, but it's really to protect the adults from the kids. There wasn't that much anti video game sentiment until after Columbine. This law has the effect of hitting two birds with one stone, it supposedly stops kids from becoming violent, and it gives the cops and excuse to arrest kids on sight for piracy.

The biggest puzzle here is: why are "minors" the ones that grownups are afraid of? I don't know why either but for some reason they are. They keep us locked up in school all day, and the reason I get for that type of thing when I ask is something along the lines of "it makes it so you don't have a bunch of kids running through the streets unsupervised".

Then you have an assortment of other laws along those lines as well. Minors aren't allowed to drive cars, their not allowed to vote. I may sound kind of crazy here, but after reading this article I'm starting to see a pattern.

I've pretty much answered your rebuttal already (as your points are identical to another poster). But anyway:

1) no it does not. Unless you downloaded it from an unofficial site. (Official site: here [daemon-tools.cc]

Incorrect - see the official site you linked to (try searching for whenu

2) use the control panel. I used it for 1 day at work to install Microsoft SDK and it removed cleanly

Oh? The control panel. Thanks for that - I would never have thought of that.

3) Limited by the operating system (IIRC). I know I've had at least 4 going at once

*sighs* no - limited by daemon tools to four.

4) None whatsoever

Depends on whether you think whenU is spyware or not.

1) no it does not. Unless you downloaded it from an unofficial site. (Official site: here
2) use the control panel. I used it for 1 day at work to install Microsoft SDK and it removed cleanly
3) Limited by the operating system (IIRC). I know I've had at least 4 going at once
4) None whatsoever

Do you mean like Daemon Tools? http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php

Daemon Tools is what you're looking for, for mounting ISOs in windows.

Any parent with small children will know the importance of making copies of their favourite CDs and DVDs etc, as small children find it hard to remember to be careful with stuff and they tend to scratch the hell out of them.

Daemon Tools and Daemonscript and a big hard drive are my friends in that regard. The kid's computer has all their games and movies copied to the hard drive, with Daemonscript set up to make icons to mount the images with Daemon Tools and then run the program itself (or the DVD player for the movies.) Much better.

Any parent with small children will know the importance of making copies of their favourite CDs and DVDs etc, as small children find it hard to remember to be careful with stuff and they tend to scratch the hell out of them.

Daemon Tools and Daemonscript and a big hard drive are my friends in that regard. The kid's computer has all their games and movies copied to the hard drive, with Daemonscript set up to make icons to mount the images with Daemon Tools and then run the program itself (or the DVD player for the movies.) Much better.

• mIRC - the best IRC client, although this isn't necessarily saying much. The (unlicensed) Excursion variant of it adds some good features.
• AutoGK - great free software for making DVD-rips in DivX or XviD.
• Daemon Tools - CD/DVD-ROM emulator/image mounter with anti-DRM features.
• Real Alternative/Media Player Classic - like many other suggestions here, this one corrects a problem with Windows, namely the super-heavy, overcomplicated new Windows Media Player. This one has a classic look and support for Real media files, thus also solving the problem of the even worse Realplayer.
• Nero Burning ROM - like Toast only it doesn't make that stupid toaster sound.
• The GodFather - audio file manager/tagger with support for retrieving tags and cover images from a number of online databases.

Seems no one is giving serious answers so i guess i will be the only one

Freeware or open source software:
01. Firefox, http://www.getfirefox.com/
02. Winamp, http://www.winamp.com/
03. Miranda, http://www.miranda-im.org/
04. Media Player Classic, http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli
05. ffdshow, http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm
06. CDBurnerXp Pro, http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
07. Daemon-tools, http://www.daemon-tools.cc/
08. uTorrent, http://www.utorrent.com/
09. XnView, http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enhome.htm l
10. ExactAudioCopy, http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
11. Dev-C++, http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
12. 7-zip, http://www.7-zip.org/
13. Real Alternative, http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternati ve.htm
14. QuickTime Alternative, http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alte rnative.htm
15. Process Explorer, http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/processexplo rer.html
16. Uniform Server, http://www.uniformserver.com/
17. nLite, http://www.nliteos.com/ (sp+hotfix+driver slipstreaming and ability to remove almost anything from the windows installation disc, including wmp, ie, drivers, services, etc, you can get your windows install disc down to 180MB with a 70MB RAM footprint after boot).

Commercial/Shareware software.
01. NOD32, http://www.nod32.com/ - simply the best antivirus software out there
02. Cinema4D, http://www.maxoncomputer.com/ Great modelling/rendering program (also available for OS X)
03. mIRC, http://www.mirc.com/ not the best irc client, but it has a tiny memory footprint/feature ratio
04. Directory Opus, http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ replace Explorer with a far better file manager.
05. UltraEdit, http://www.ultraedit.com/ great editor for many textbased formats
06. Visual Studio, http://microsoft.com/
07. Nero Burning ROM. http://www.ahead.de/ my burning program of choice

I second Microsoft Power Toys and add some more:

* AutoIt for simple automation tasks and creating small programs with graphical user interfaces

* Firefox, of course. Opera is also a good choice.

* Daemon Tools for mounting ISOs as virtual CD/DVD drives

* Trillian--AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo messenger client


* QuickTime Alternative

* RealPlayer Alternative

* IrfanView--small, free, fast image viewer



* SysInternals utilities--useful for admins

* Scanner--shows hard drive usage as stacked pie graph of files/folders

* 7-zip: similar to WinZip or WinRAR or StuffIt

* Foxit [PDF] Reader--a lite alternative to Adobe


Following ones aren't free but are very useful Windows-only programs:

* FinePrint--n up printing, universal print preview, etc.

* MaxiVisa--use a networked computer like a secondary display

* TextPad, though I opt for the open-source and FREE SciTE

but SecuROM is a competing copy protection.

First of all making a 'cracked exe' is a lot more work than just stripping the copy protection, as the Starforce protection produces heavily modified and obfuscated binaries, this is why you practically don't see backup CD cracks or 'NoCDs' for Starforce protected discs.

In any event, it's an arms war, and it's been going on for over 20 years. So far, I'm not predicting any winner, but the biggest loser so far has been the consumer (and the one who actually pays for the program, and gets it along with copy protection that makes his machine less stable, slower, and may not work on his hardware at all.)

Funny. Deamon tools works fine on my legal beta-copy.

Not accrdign to this person

And i am saying nothing about bad business. I am saying that freeware tools that need deep access to kernel like feature will not work. Maybe they will but you will have to disbale a lot of drm releated features.

for userspace application like apache or you name it this will have no infulence at all unless the applicaiton badly assumes it has admin proveledges all the time. Some freeware tools do that but some business toosl do that as well ( think games....)

Sony can still install his rootkit on vista because they can affort a certificate. (They can even get feedback from most anti virus creators that their rootkit won't be flagged as rootkit)

Supposedly there's a way to avoid the copy protection that Starforce does

It can supposedly be done with Daemon Tools
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/t8056-bypass-starf orce-wo-unplug.html

Greed. Free products like Daemon Tools, when the author suddenly decides that free doesn't pay the bills, and includes spyware. Daemon Tools is a great product, but I refuse to ever use it again. I don't care if the setup lets you uncheck the option to install the spyware; it shouldn't be there in the first place.

What will you do with the ripped bytes?

VMWare Player tools for fun (and profit???)

Blank VMWare disk image
FreeDOS boot/install CD and/or FreeDOS boot floppy image
Daemon Tools (virtual CD drive) and/or Virtual Floppy Drive

Personally, I perfer Deamon Tools, which supports multiple image formats and can emulate copy protection, so it can be used with game discs. (Ex. I do not have to go searching for my Warcraft III disc, I just have to tell Deamon Tools to mount it, even though Warcraft III has copy protection on the disc.)

"You need the CD/DVD in the drive to play. I know this is standard, but I fail to see the reason when you have each install attached to a KEY too that I'm sure is checked when you play multiplayer. I like playing on my work computer and my home computer, why do I have to lug the DVD around? There's a NOCD hack already or I wouldn't have bought the game."

Nah. Just rip it with error block skipping turned on in alcohol 120% takes about an hour, but then all you need to do is: RIp iso. Mount with deamon tools, install (reinstall off ISO so it plays nice with deamon tools without a registy hack). Turn alchol 120% cd emulation OFF (the game is hardcoded to not run with alcohol 120% running). and fire it up.

also another bonus, theres no added delay in booting up the game, waiting for the CD to spin up. My game loads almost exactly when i click the icon.

also i heard that the NO CD hack actually fubars punkbuster as in you can tplay on PB servers. not a problem with isos.

Ditto all of the above, plus I have kids. Kids don't treat CDs or DVDs respectfully. It's just the nature of the beast.

My solution was to use Daemon Tools (and LC ISO Creator) to create virtual CD-ROMs on my hard drive so I (and my kids) can play games anytime without fumbling for CDs. Both those tools are freeware. I'm sure there are others (like Alcohol 120%, which is not freeware) that do the job as well, that's just the solution I used.

I spent the better part of this last weekend finally getting around to implementing my idea, and between the kids' games and my games, it took about 60GB. Much of that includes just archived CD-ROMs, not necessarily the ones that require the CD to play, but I thought, what the heck, I might lose 'em.

The only part that costs money is the price of the 60-80 GB hard drive to hold the CD/DVD-ROM ISO's. Which runs about the same price as a decent size USB drive these days (as discussed in the original article).

BTW -- this works great for backing up DVDs to play back on the computer (which my kids do also).

Side note: Addictive ain't extreme enough to describe VMWare WS5. I did the beta for VMWare and WOW! I particularly like teams and multiple snapshots. From a security standpoint, doing risky things on the 'net in a VM is a dream. After you are done, restore to a prior snapshot and who cares what some script-kiddie tried on that VM. That's just one nice thing about it. I really, really need a multiple-way mo-bo with dual-core Opterons stuffed with RAM *evil grin*.

Daemon tools is a good free tool for mounting ISO (and other) images in Windows. The images appear as if a generic CD/DVD drive.

Ah, the joys of Starforce 3.

For the interested, some links about Starforce 3.

The people who really suffer are those who did buy the game, and want to make their legal archive/backup copy. I used to make a copy, which I used to play the game. The original I kept in a safer place where it was less likely to be damaged. Now however, I like to make CD images and play off of those, which I think fair use easily allows.

The big joke is that these companies spend so much money on copy protections that won't be worth squat 2-4 months after the game's release (if that).

Ah, the joys of Starforce 3.

For the interested, some links about Starforce 3.

The people who really suffer are those who did buy the game, and want to make their legal archive/backup copy. I used to make a copy, which I used to play the game. The original I kept in a safer place where it was less likely to be damaged. Now however, I like to make CD images and play off of those, which I think fair use easily allows.

The big joke is that these companies spend so much money on copy protections that won't be worth squat 2-4 months after the game's release (if that).

Daemon Tools had this functionality, but I haven't used it in like a year or so. Anyway maybe you can check it out.

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/portal/portal.php

Here's my list of spyware/adware free apps, in no particular order:

Crap Cleaner - Cleans temp files, cookies, etc
P2P + Codec Packs - Kazaa Lite Resurrection, K-Lite Codec Packs, QuickTime Alternative, Real Alternative
Gmail Notifier - System tray icon that checks your google mail
Winamp - Media Player
Open Office - Office Suite
AbiWord - Word Processing
GIMP - Image Editor
Paint.Net - Image Editor
AVG Antivirus - Decent free antivirus
Everest Home - System diagnostics and benchmarking solution
Daemon Tools - CD/DVD emulator
Zone Alarm - The free version is a decent firewall
CWShredder - Removes CoolWeb adware

The problem is anti-copy protections. This guy uses software such as Daemon Tools that emulates what is needed by those algorithms. The Linux driver doesn't do that.

However TransGaming is known to solve the copy-protection problems with their Cedega product, but for a limited list of supported games.

The problem is anti-copy protections. This guy uses software such as Daemon Tools that emulates what is needed by those algorithms. The Linux driver doesn't do that.

However TransGaming is known to solve the copy-protection problems with their Cedega product, but for a limited list of supported games.

Actually, you can use daemon tools to achieve a similar mode of operation on a PC. While it's not integrated into the system, the creators of the program made if *exactly* for this situation, and it makes things easier even if companies integrate obnoxious anti-cd duplication protection schemes (RPMS, etc). I like the mac's simplicity, but since I hardly play games on my powerbook, I'm not quite sure how well it works with games/without the CD (apparently quite well). Anyway, I recommend d-tools if you like to horde huge libraries of CDs on a file server on your network (including games).

Slackware, you insensitive clod! ;-)

Actually on a serious note, I install (for my mother, family and friends)...

7-zip
gs / gsview
Firefox / Thunderbird
AVG
WinPT
Eraser
OpenOffice
Gimp (depending on the family member or friend)
Gaim
FileZilla
Amaya (only because bluefish is not available on win32 yet)
RealVNC
VIM
irFanview
Azureus (depending on the family member or friend)
Daemon Tools (depending on the family member or friend)

Well if you are using Linux, then you can just compress it into an ISO and mount the ISO using 'mount -t iso9660 -o loop isofile.iso mountdirectory'.

If you are stuck on Windows, you can try DAEMON Tools. I have actually used this program and it works quite well. I haven't tried it for what you are needing it for, but it's worth a shot anyway :)

Battlefield is SafeDisc protected. Use CloneCD to create an image. Use a good reading drive with fast error skipping. Then mount that image in Daemon Tools. Daemon Tools works for all except the very latest copy protections. Mostly, the updated copy protections include a blacklist which usually gets overriden in the next D-Tools release.

If a game is SecuROM-protected, you have to use another approach, mainly using a different reading program that supports DPM.

Really, handling physical media like CD/DVD is so 2000. Today you stuff enough HD space into your file server and keep CD images to mount when needed.

It's a burden for me to drag around the CD for every game I want to play, as I do full game installs (sure, it takes up HD space, but it drastically improves performance).

For that I use the free tool ISOBuster to create an ISO, and then use DAEMON Tools (also free) to mount it as a "virtual CD" (which looks just like a CD, but it's really the ISO on my hard drive).

Then I can do the minimal install, because the additional content it reads from the "CD", it's actually getting from the hard drive! ;-)

So your laptop batteries will last much longer, since it doesn't have to spin both the hard drive and the CD-ROM; and your game will take up almost the same amount of space on your hard drive (possibly less, if the content on the CD is compressed).

Given the complexity of getting a CD emulator installed and working, I don't think it's worth the work, but that's the state of the world.

Hunh?? Did I miss something? How long does it take to install Daemon Tools again? I would guess around what, 10 seconds? Maybe a reboot? Wow. I must be a genius if that is complex...

Yes, it does. This is endemic of the latest version of Macrovision's "SafeDisc" protection scheme: blacklist certain programs, and refuse to load the game if any of them are detected.

What's a shame is that this only hurts legitimate CD mastering programs, such as Nero and Easy CD Creator! DAEMON Tools, the CD emulator most often used to play pirated games, comes out with a new version within days (hours?) of the game being released -- it has slightly changed strings within the executable/driver/etc. to foil the blacklist, so the only people hurt by Macrovision's "protection" are the legitimate customers who also have commercial CD mastering software installed on their PC!

This is ridiculous, and another good example of why copy protection is a failure.

i dunno if they detect for daemon tools, but it's worth a try (and its free).