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Keeping Children's Software on a Networked Server?

Posted by Cliff on from the this-is-not-"piracy"....yet dept.

mache asks: "I have a seven year old son with his own Windows 98 machine and he has many, many educational and game CDs that his stupid parents have purchased for him. These CDs often get lost and scratched. Many of these applications will not operate without the CD being in the CD drive. At an average of $20 or more, I want to be able to load a CD on to a Linux server once and then access the application through Samba. I understand that there are some applications out there that provide a 'virutal' CD player interface to a remote server and may defeat the copy protection mechanisms (deliberately placed bad tracks) in place on kid/game/educational CDs. I bought the CDs legitimately and just want to use them legitimately rather than having my son destroy them, forcing me to buy him new ones. Does anyone have a recommendation for a Windows-based application that would produce a 'virutal' CD player on a Windows 98 machine and also defeat currently used CD copy protection allowing some sort of CD image to reside on my in-home networked server."

3 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. try by cassidyc · · Score: 4, Informative

    www.daemon-tools.net has tools for copying CDs and copes with safedisk protection

    CJC

  2. Not true anymore. by Chasing+Amy · · Score: 5, Informative

    That was true four or five years ago, but not today. There are many copy-protection mechanisms in place on contemporary CD-ROM games which really do require the CD to be inserted, such as SafeDisc, SafeDisc 2, LaserLok, and Securom.

    Fortunately, Daemon Tools defeats most forms of such CD-check copy protection, and new fixes are being incorporated all the time.

    http://www.daemon-tools.net/main.htm is the place to get Daemon Tools. It's a virtual CD-ROM drive which not only mounts CD images, it will also emulate the proper security mechanism that the origional CD would have.

    Anyone who wants to copy a copy-protected CD, or host CD images for a virtual CD-ROM drive, should read the tutorials on that site I referenced.

    --

    Chasing Amy
    (We all chase Amy...)
    "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
  3. Daemon Tools by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a program called Daemon Tools.

    It runs on Win95/98/ME, and NT4/W2K/XP.

    It'll mount .iso images, cdrwin, clonecd, and other cd and dvd images. It also emulates various cd copy protection schemes.

    Programs/apps/games think its a real CD in a real CD-Rom drive, because it installs a 'virtual SCSI card', and 'virtual SCSI CDrom/DVDrom'. Its as real as it can get. But the driver doesn't talk to actual physical hardware, it just talks to a file on your local or remote filesystem.

    So. Use CloneCD (or whatever, but clonecd is definitely best) and image all your kids' CDs onto the linux server. And use daemon tools to mount the cd images over samba.

    I hardly use any CDs anymore. I have literally 100s of CloneCD image's on my fileserver, and just mount them using Daemon-Tools over Samba.

    You will LOVE this program!

    D.

    --
    You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.