remove DLA? (Windows DVD burning utility)

Please have mercy for the cross-posting, but I want to get a breadth of
opinions.

DLA is supposed to be able to make the discs it writes compatible with
about any drive. I'm having trouble burning DVD-Rs on XP Pro (on an IBM
ThinkCentre desktop) so that the discs can be read by Linux using the
same drive (I'm dual booting). I try to disable DLA for the drive
(DVD-Multi), but every time I insert a new disc, I find DLA re-enabled.
A little esearch reveals that DLA seems to have conflicts with a lot
of software, eg Nero, MS Backup, and upgrade to Vista. Also I've read
that there are big reliability issues. To be blunt it seems basically
obnoxious, troublesome, and nonstandard. I truly hope my opinion won't
turn this into a Windows vs. Linux brawl, but a lively exchange of facts
relevant to DLA would be welcome. :-)

The only thing stopping me from deleting DLA is that I visited the Sonic
site, and they charge something like $20 or $30 for it, and I don't know
how to reinstall my copy. It must be on the hidden XP recovery
partition somewhere, but I don't know where. Anyway is there some
quasi-compelling reason to save this thing?

Although you can still find software for it, Drive Letter Access has
largely been abandoned as a method for burning optical media because
it's not reliable. DLA doesn't close the disc properly, so there's no
guarantee the disc will be playable on anything other than the computer
that burned it, and it may not even play on that computer.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Matt wrote:
Please have mercy for the cross-posting, but I want to get a breadth of
opinions.

DLA is supposed to be able to make the discs it writes compatible with
about any drive. I'm having trouble burning DVD-Rs on XP Pro (on an IBM
ThinkCentre desktop) so that the discs can be read by Linux using the
same drive (I'm dual booting). I try to disable DLA for the drive
(DVD-Multi), but every time I insert a new disc, I find DLA re-enabled.
A little esearch reveals that DLA seems to have conflicts with a lot of
software, eg Nero, MS Backup, and upgrade to Vista. Also I've read that
there are big reliability issues. To be blunt it seems basically
obnoxious, troublesome, and nonstandard. I truly hope my opinion won't
turn this into a Windows vs. Linux brawl, but a lively exchange of facts
relevant to DLA would be welcome. :-)

The only thing stopping me from deleting DLA is that I visited the Sonic
site, and they charge something like $20 or $30 for it, and I don't know
how to reinstall my copy. It must be on the hidden XP recovery
partition somewhere, but I don't know where. Anyway is there some
quasi-compelling reason to save this thing?

Matt wrote:
Please have mercy for the cross-posting, but I want to get a breadth of
opinions.

DLA is supposed to be able to make the discs it writes compatible with
about any drive. I'm having trouble burning DVD-Rs on XP Pro (on an IBM
ThinkCentre desktop) so that the discs can be read by Linux using the
same drive (I'm dual booting). I try to disable DLA for the drive
(DVD-Multi), but every time I insert a new disc, I find DLA re-enabled.
A little esearch reveals that DLA seems to have conflicts with a lot of
software, eg Nero, MS Backup, and upgrade to Vista. Also I've read that
there are big reliability issues. To be blunt it seems basically
obnoxious, troublesome, and nonstandard. I truly hope my opinion won't
turn this into a Windows vs. Linux brawl, but a lively exchange of facts
relevant to DLA would be welcome. :-)

The only thing stopping me from deleting DLA is that I visited the Sonic
site, and they charge something like $20 or $30 for it, and I don't know
how to reinstall my copy. It must be on the hidden XP recovery
partition somewhere, but I don't know where. Anyway is there some
quasi-compelling reason to save this thing?



DLA or even packet writing in general is a solution looking for a problem.
Universal Disk Format (UDF) software will sometimes create a disc which
can not be read on another PC. I suggest sticking to Joliet/ISO9660 and
good quality CD-R/DVD+/-R media.

http://www.nero.com/enu/downloads-nero6-update.php
http://cdburnerxp.se/download?latest
http://www.imgburn.com/
http://www.ashampoo.com/frontend/pro...10&previe w=1

"Matt" wrote in message
...
Please have mercy for the cross-posting, but I want to get a breadth of
opinions.

DLA is supposed to be able to make the discs it writes compatible with
about any drive. I'm having trouble burning DVD-Rs on XP Pro (on an IBM
ThinkCentre desktop) so that the discs can be read by Linux using the same
drive (I'm dual booting). I try to disable DLA for the drive (DVD-Multi),
but every time I insert a new disc, I find DLA re-enabled. A little
esearch reveals that DLA seems to have conflicts with a lot of software,
eg Nero, MS Backup, and upgrade to Vista. Also I've read that there are
big reliability issues. To be blunt it seems basically obnoxious,
troublesome, and nonstandard. I truly hope my opinion won't turn this
into a Windows vs. Linux brawl, but a lively exchange of facts relevant to
DLA would be welcome. :-)

The only thing stopping me from deleting DLA is that I visited the Sonic
site, and they charge something like $20 or $30 for it, and I don't know
how to reinstall my copy. It must be on the hidden XP recovery partition
somewhere, but I don't know where. Anyway is there some quasi-compelling
reason to save this thing?

Even if it's on the recovery partition, it isn't part of XP, it is a 3rd
party utility. Take the system type from the back of your system, go to
the Lenovo support site with that information, and search for the
applications that came with the system. You may very well find the
installer there, so you can remove it and put it back if for some reason you
find it useful.

You might also try just disabling the service itself via msconfig. Set it
to disabled, do not allow it to start automatically,

HTH
-pk

Patrick Keenan wrote:
"Matt" wrote in message
...
Please have mercy for the cross-posting, but I want to get a breadth
of opinions.

DLA is supposed to be able to make the discs it writes compatible with
about any drive. I'm having trouble burning DVD-Rs on XP Pro (on an
IBM ThinkCentre desktop) so that the discs can be read by Linux using
the same drive (I'm dual booting). I try to disable DLA for the drive
(DVD-Multi), but every time I insert a new disc, I find DLA
re-enabled. A little esearch reveals that DLA seems to have conflicts
with a lot of software, eg Nero, MS Backup, and upgrade to Vista.
Also I've read that there are big reliability issues. To be blunt it
seems basically obnoxious, troublesome, and nonstandard. I truly hope
my opinion won't turn this into a Windows vs. Linux brawl, but a
lively exchange of facts relevant to DLA would be welcome. :-)

The only thing stopping me from deleting DLA is that I visited the
Sonic site, and they charge something like $20 or $30 for it, and I
don't know how to reinstall my copy. It must be on the hidden XP
recovery partition somewhere, but I don't know where. Anyway is there
some quasi-compelling reason to save this thing?

Even if it's on the recovery partition, it isn't part of XP, it is a 3rd
party utility. Take the system type from the back of your system, go
to the Lenovo support site with that information, and search for the
applications that came with the system. You may very well find the
installer there, so you can remove it and put it back if for some reason
you find it useful.

You might also try just disabling the service itself via msconfig. Set
it to disabled, do not allow it to start automatically,

HTH
-pk



One of the conflicts from DLA was that the control panel would hang when
started from My Computer but not when started in its own window from the
start menu. C.P. would hang that way when both DLA and Nero 7
essentials were installed but not if either one were absent. I removed
DLA, and I find that now the control panel works okay.

Since removing DLA I've used Nero to burn a DVD that I am able to read
on Linux.

The Wikipedia article on DLA points to an IBM page whence you can
download a recent seemingly-actively-maintained DLA package for XP,
which I would use in case I ever see a reason to try DLA again.

Thanks everybody for your help.