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Keeping Children's Software on a Networked Server?
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."
I think a seven year old should first learn respect for for the CDs. I mean education is the aim of the game. Letting them learn all these hi tech skills on the computer, should really include teaching him how to respect CDs and hardware etc.
I think once he destroys his favourite disk, and learns that such behaviour means that one of his possessions is no longer available to him, then he will have learnt a lesson more useful to him than whatever the software itself is trying to teach.
As I have said before in a previous post, If you have legitimately purchased the software, and the copy protection is causing you problems, you are IMHO, perfectly entitled to crack the copy protection.
There are essentially two ways to crack the program. (besides just making a CDR copy).
1. Search the web or usenet for a crack, produced by one of the many cracking organisations. This usually works well for teenage games, especially those popular at LAN parties. I don't know if it will work for educational stuff interned for kids.
A google search for "<program name> no-cd crack" should produce results, but be prepared for many annoying pop-ups, pornographic banners, broken links etc.
2. Alternatively you could crack it yourself, as this is often quite easy if you have programming skills.
The usual approach is to run the program under a debugger, tracing the program as it starts up with & without the key disc present. The just patch the executable so that the check is not performed, or the result ignored.
Needless to say, you should only apply such techniques to programs you own, and you should not share the results with anyone who does not also own a legit copy of the software.
Makes you wonder what they are really trying to teach their kids.
Never confuse volume with power.