Hundminen Posted March 20, 2000 Share Posted March 20, 2000 I am planning a business trip, and I plan to take along my notebook PC (IBM Thinkpad with PII 300MHz, 128 Meg RAM, NT 4.0). Excuse my ignorance, but the IS whizzes (geeks) at my company have loaded all our computers with GOP (whatever the heck that is), and I am unable to load most (but not all) games whether by CD or off internet. I usually get a dialog saying I need administrator password. Does anybody have any suggestions to get around this so I can hone my CM skills while on the road? Hundminen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GriffinCheng Posted March 20, 2000 Share Posted March 20, 2000 I see your Thinkpad is running on NT4 which does not support anything other than DirectX 3 and since CM and most other games do require DirectX 6 or higher, I don't think your machines can play CM. BTW, I am using NT4 @ work. Sure, I wish if CM can forgo the DirectX, me and my PEBM opponents (note the pural here) would definitely be very happy. That is one of the main reasons I am seriesly looking at a personal notebook here. Griffin @ work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted March 20, 2000 Share Posted March 20, 2000 NT is your (our) problem. My "old" IBM 380Z, PII-300, 64 Mb RAM, ran CM just great. As long as you're in NT you're screwed for the DirectX reason. There have been posts about Win2K workarounds here, if you search, and if you can secretly upgrade to it. Otherwise, life is bleak on the road, indeed. NT is definitely a horrible choice for laptop users, DirectX being the least of your problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hakko Ichiu Posted March 20, 2000 Share Posted March 20, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hundminen: Excuse my ignorance, but the IS whizzes (geeks) at my company have loaded all our computers with GOP (whatever the heck that is), and I am unable to load most (but not all) games whether by CD or off internet. I usually get a dialog saying I need administrator password. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I knew those Right-wing Religious Conservatives would find a way to ban violent computer games. ------------------ Das also war des Pudels Kern! -- Goethe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COMMO CHIEF Posted March 25, 2000 Share Posted March 25, 2000 Ah yes, the wonderfull world of NT. I have the same problem. At work of course. There is nothing you can do. Service pack 4 comes with direct-X 3.0 That's the only direct-X that will load on NT 4.0 The reason you need an "administrator" is because "general users" are not authorized by default to load device drivers, edit the registry, change system files, etc.... Security was the main focus in the development of the operating system. I can't find any work around, and this is what I do for a living. If any body has a work around for getting the DEMO to run with NT 4.0 it would be really helpfull. I sent a copy of the BETA to Microsoft tech support, which I have a direct contract with. They say BTS needs to add the DLL's required for NT 4.0 or make the game compatible with direct-X 3.0 But I have seen manufactures', hardware and software, release driver after driver and patch after patch to get thier stuff to work with NT. It's a useless cause. Besides, it's a sucky OS for gamers anyway. I say just suck it up and buy your own laptop so you can paly the game at work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COMMO CHIEF Posted March 25, 2000 Share Posted March 25, 2000 <but the IS whizzes (geeks> Oh... and BTW, be nice to us geeks. You are probably working for one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted March 26, 2000 Share Posted March 26, 2000 Depending on how hard it is to temporarily replace the hard drive (and how bad you REALLY want to play CM on the laptop), you could get another 2.5" hard drive and install Win98 2nd Edition on it. This way you could just swap out the hard drive w/ NT on it for the other 2.5" drive w/ Win98 on it. Most (but definitely not all) ThinkPads have access to the hard drive from underneath the keyboard (often in the same vicinity as the main battery). I'm not sure if the IBM ThinkPads came with an option to install either Win NT or Win 98 (some did). If this is the case (and if you could possibly pry such software from your IS people) then you could just install that and be up and running. Otherwise you will have to get a copy of Win98 AND the appropriate drivers for you laptop. So.. how desperate are you to play CM on your laptop ? A 2.5" drive of 2Gb or so should be sufficient and it may cost you around $120 +. You can check out http://www.pricewatch.com and find pricing on such drives (though you need to be careful with who you purchase from since many vendors overcharge for shipping and/or don't have stock on the items they give prices for). You may want to also look for a "drive kit" for your laptop, that way you can get any necessary additional hardware that the drive may need (and won't come with a "bare" drive). Ok, now your confused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hundminen Posted March 26, 2000 Author Share Posted March 26, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Depending on how hard it is to temporarily replace the hard drive (and how bad you REALLY want to play CM on the laptop), you could get another 2.5" hard drive and install Win98 2nd Edition on it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think I'll wait and see how good the gold release really is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted March 27, 2000 Share Posted March 27, 2000 Couldn't you partition the regular drive? You'd only need enough space on the partition to install Win98, the drivers for video/sound, and the CM demo. 600MB should be more than enough. I've read articles in which a desktop was partitioned in that fashion, allowing NT masters also to goof about with cool games on their down time. DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted March 27, 2000 Share Posted March 27, 2000 Hundminen could repartition his drive with PowerQuest's PartitionMagic, assuming that there is enough space left on the drive to create another partition. This program allows you to keep a current partition on your drive and create another one with the freespace that is still present. Without PartitionMagic you would have to kill your current NT partition in order to eventually get Win98 on - and your IS dept. probably wouldn't smile on the prospect of reinstalling NT for you. I believe that the package now comes with BootMagic to allow you to boot to whichever partition you want (I'm not sure how well NT's Boot Manager works with Win9x being installed AFTER NT). If it doesn't then you will probably want to get V Communication's System Commander. If your IS staff doesn't freak-out about another partition on the drive; this would be the most cost effective solution for you (PartitionMagic should be less than US$70). Windows 98 eats up somewhere around 250Mb, so I'd suggest a partition of at least 300Mb minimum (to get the full version of CM installed you may want a partition that is quite a bit larger - 1Gb should be more than enough, and 600Mb probably would also be plenty). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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