Paul, you're not going to like this but the issue may be the copyright
protection on the CD's and (you guessed it) Windows.  I'm going to make
a LOT of assumptions here since you didn't mention the O/S or the CD
formats but I'll assume that it's Win98 and that the problem is
occurring on the same CD's.  We had a problem a while back with
inconsistent reading of CD's.  Sometimes it would work and sometimes it
wouldn't.  Since the customer was migrating to Win2k anyway, we loaded
the new O/S and tried again.  Guess what?  Perfect reading...every time.
We took the CD's back to a couple of different Win98 machines with
different CD peripherals (readers, burners, etc.) and the problem
started all over again on every one of them.  The problem was on one
manufacturer's CD (yes, every original copy from this software
manufacturer did the same thing).  Since the issue was unique, we filed
it away under "interesting information" but never pursued the issue any
further.  However, it was generally accepted among our group of misfits
that the root cause was the copyright protection that the software
developer was using and not the CD or the machine.

        Cheers,
        Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Villano, Paul
Sent: May 10, 2002 8:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCBUILD] Autorun Problems


I can't tell you the hellish time I've had the past few days over this
same issue.  Between cutting CDs on different machines, different
readers in different machines, and the software just quitting.  And of
course when they didn't work for folks, I was told it was my fault and
that there was something wrong with the CD.  (Which there wasn't.

For some reason the blankety-blank computers weren't reading the
autorun. It would read fine one minute, then not the rest, some would
read it right away and some would take seemingly forever (20 whole
seconds or more!
Grin.)  And these are the identical autorun files that never had a
problem any other time and would work after a few times.

The most frustrating part was that the same CD would work, then not work
in the same machine.  GROWLS.

There are so many different computers (all Gateway!) that telling you
specifics probably wouldn't help.  But I sure would appreciate someone
simply telling me it's not MY fault (especially since I know the
recipients will be blaming me!  Grin.)

Paul
PERSONAL QUOTE:  Make the most of every moment!

              The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
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                     support at our newest website:
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