Virtual CD 4 review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 21 Jun 2002

Price when reviewed: (£25)

Reviewed By: Karl Wright

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

If you have a large hard disk, this is a really cool piece of software.

It converts all your favourite CD-ROMs into hard disk files, so you need never insert a CD into your PC again. Just imagine: no more wasted time rummaging around for a disc so you can blast aliens or consult your favourite encyclopedia. Also, because your hard disk is faster than your CD drive, your games and multimedia will be more responsive too.

Because many programs on CD-ROM are designed to constantly access the CD drive for more data, making them run from hard disk isn't just a matter of copying the entire contents over. Even with everything copied, the program will still look for the CD - and more than likely crash, demand a disc, or both!

Virtual CD tricks your PC by creating a fake CD-ROM drive which is really just a reserved area on your hard disk. It then allows you to create exact copies or images of your favourites CDs. Once they're made, right-click on any desired disc image and it will be 'loaded' into your virtual CD Drive. These virtual CDs behave just like the originals. You can install from them and your games can happily read data from them, treating them just as they would real CDs.

The program works well, though it does take around 10 to 15 minutes to create an image of a full disc. Because of the copy protection applied to some CDs, Virtual CD doesn't guarantee to work in every instance. But I tested it with one copy protected game, and it worked fine. It won't work with DVDs, though.

Virtual CD is perfect for anyone with a laptop who doesn't want to carry lots of CDs around with them. It's also great if (like me) you're disorganised and keep losing your CDs, or if you just have lots of programs that constantly ask for discs. If this sounds familiar, then Virtual CD is for you.

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