Hi Jonathan,
The default drive per se is your C:\ drive. It's the one
with the active partition which you boot up Windows from.
What you're experiencing with some games defaulting to
one drive instead of the other is a result of that game's
setup program, not a Windows setting. Although it may
be true that older games will not recognise the larger NTFS
partitions and therefore default to the FAT32 ones, I can
honestly say that it's not worth worrying about an issue
that only occurs once during the installation of the game.
Now, on to the Insert CD error you're getting from the games:
When running a restricted user account with fast user switching under Windows XP,
some games will not start correctly. The game requests that the original disk be
placed in the drive, even if it is already present.
To remedy this issue, download and run this fix for Windows XP English Version:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/WinXPHome/Patch/1.0/WXP/EN-US/updatesecdrv.exe
If that patch doesn't resolve the issue, there are several troubleshooting steps
outlined in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=228985 Another trick
that I found sometimes works is to make the limited account an administrator
account and run that game once. This will allow the registry settings for that user
to be created, and they will still exist after the account is changed back.
If you have more than one CD ROM drive, try inserting it into the other drives,
or disable those drives in Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager.
Virtual CD drives (Alcohol, Daemon, Phantom, etc.) must be disabled as well.
One last tip for Kazaa users, is to uninstall Kazaa and the game, and then install
the game again. Kazaa has been known to prevent games from starting.
--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
Game FAQs:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite:
http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________
--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
Game FAQs:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite:
http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________
| I have tried 2 games that both require CDs in the CD-ROM
| drive to play (Half-Life and Grand Theft Auto III). They
| are both legit and are not pirated. After I've installed
| the games with no known problems and attempted to start the
| games, they would ask for the respective game CD to be in
| the CD-ROM drive (even though it's in). The drive runs
| just fine if I were to insert a CD and then explore its
| contents in Windows Explorer. Currently I have one regular
| CD-ROM drive, one burner, and two hard drives [the primary
| is running Windows XP (NTFS file format) and the other has
| Windows 98 (FAT 32 file format) on it]. When I try to
| install programs, some programs would preset the
| destination to the primary hard drive and sometimes to the
| secondary hard drive. I need help with setting default
| drives. Thank you for any of the help that anyone can
| contribute to my situation.
