remove DLA? (Windows DVD burning utility)

Matt

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?

Leonard Grey

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?

Huck

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.

Matt

Patrick Keenan wrote:
> "Matt" <> wrote in message
> news:XCG1k.21532$...
>> 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.