Laurence said:
with 98SE for general stuff. What do I need to be able to watch movies?
Win98SE has two "built-in" DVD players.
1. See the instructions at:
http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/717/
2. The instructions below came from a forum somewhere and I've since lost
the address.
It also seems that Win98SE also has a dedicated DVD player, that isn't
installed as part of the normal installation process. However, you can do it
manually, following the instructions below:
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To install the player yourself, you need to extract it from Windows 98 CAB
files using Winzip.
DRIVER11.CAB..........DVDPLAY.CHM
DRIVER17.CAB..........DVDPLAY.EXE
DRIVER17.CAB..........DVDRGN.EXE
DRIVER28.CAB..........DVDPLAY.CNT
DRIVER42.CAB..........DVDPLAY.HLP (French version of Windows 98)
DRIVER44.CAB..........DVDPLAY.HLP (US version of Windows 98)
P.S. Locations of these files might be in other CAB files if for some reason
microsoft decides to repackage Windows 98.
- Extract these 5 files into a folder of your choice
- Move DVDRGN.EXE into the Windows 98 folder
- Run DVDPLAY.EXE.
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You're not quite home yet though, because for either of these methods to
work, you need a DVD registered driver. (These programs are just the shell
needed to use the driver. Without a driver neither one of these
techniques will work.)
I found a free DVD codec at:
http://digilander.libero.it/frbat/software.htm#FreeDvdCodec
This one is meant to be used with MaximusDVD (see below) but it seems to
work just as well for the techniques discussed above.
I have tested both techniques above. My initial observations is that they
work superbly. However, mplayer2.exe doesn't have the navigation control
system that dvdplay.exe does. It's strictly an on/off program.
I also came across references to two freeware programs that might work
better for you.
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VideoLan
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You can dl this program here.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
It is self-contained. It installs its own drivers and a front end program.
I've tested it -- it works wells, although the interface is a little clunky
to figure out and it seems capable of doing a bunch of other things that I
didn't check out. Also, once it stole my video file associations, I couldn't
seem to release from within the program preferences.
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MaximusDVDPlayer
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The original site of this freeware program seems to have disappeared.
However, you can still find it by Googling for it. I found it here:
http://digilander.libero.it/frbat/software2.htm
As I mentioned above, you have to dl and install the free DVD codec that can
be found on the same site. I haven't tested this one at all, so I can't say
anything more about it.
M
