Installing and Configuring a DVD Drive

Installing and configuring a DVD-ROM drive or writable DVD drive requires the same steps detailed in Chapter 10, with the following exceptions:

  • Windows 95B/98/Me and Windows 2000/XP support DVD drives natively. Windows NT 4 recognizes DVD drives only as standard CD-ROM drives, unless you install drivers provided by the drive manufacturer.

  • DVD drives use Region Coding, which restricts which DVD discs may be played in that drive. For example, a drive set to Region 1 (U.S. and Canada) can play only Region 1 discs, while a drive set to Region 2 (Europe) can play only Region 2 discs. By default, DVD Region is set to the installation location. The Region setting for the drive can be changed a limited number of times, typically five.

Tip

Some DVD drives shipped before 1/1/2000 did not implement Region Code locking in hardware, instead using software and the registry to control the number of times the Region could be changed. If you have one of those drives and exceed the allowed number of Region changes, you can reset the counter by uninstalling the drive itself and the software that accesses it (e.g., a DVD player application), deleting all references to the drive and the software from the registry, and then reinstalling the drive and software. All DVD drives shipped on or after 1/1/2000 implement Region Code locking on a chip inside the drive itself, and in theory cannot be reset short of returning them to the manufacturer. Of course, many DVD ...

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