Maestro_7

ST:BOTF does work with the fan-made v1.2 "XP" patch, and it is true that the no-cd crack doesn't continue to work once the patch is applied. I wrote up this guide to playing BOTF with the XP patch and with no CD in the drive, just a mini-image :- Star Trek: Birth of the Federation Create a mini-image on a virtual drive, to play without CD Requires :- Birth of the Federation Original CD; Alcohol 120%, with a virtual drive set up. Steps :- 1) Insert BOTF CD into Drive 2) Start Alcohol 120% (v1.9.2 Build 1705 [OR HIGHER]) 3) Select "Image Making Wizard" in the left pane 4) Select the drive that you have placed the CD in 5) Select the "Read Speed" as 1X (150kB/sec) 6) Make sure that out off all the boxes at the bottom, only "Skip Reading errors" is checked 7) Choose where you want the image file to be created, e.g. Desktop, C: Drive etc. 8) You can also choose to rename the image file at the bottom, leave the type of image as *.mds unless you use any other applications to mount image files 9) Select Start 10) In the new window, there will be a scroll pane. Wait until a series (about three or four) of Read errors with exclamation marks beside them appear. 11) Press Cancel at the bottom of the window 12) When asked if you want to cancel the copying, select Yes 13) Wait, and then you will be asked if you wish to delete the files. Select No! 14) Click Finish 15) Locate where you chose the image file to be created, there should be two files there, an MDS and a MDF. Keep these together. 16) Then go to the directory where you originally installed BOTF, e.g. "C:\Program Files\Microprose\ST Birth of the Federation" 17) Open the file "disc.id" with Notepad 18) Select All, delete and save 19) Then open the file "stbof.ini" with Notepad 20) At the top, change the CD path to your virtual drive letter, e.g. "CDPATH=F:\", and save 21) Start Alcohol 120% again 22) Select both image files (MDS and MDF) that were created and drag them simultaneously into the main window pane 23) Right-click the file that appears, go to "Mount on Device" and select your virtual drive 24) You can now play BOTF without the CD and just the mini-image in your virtual drive - Guide written by Maestro_7

A patch has been produced by Jonathan Scobbie which slows down Privateer 2 Deluxe Edition on modern PCs. It is available here (bottom of page), hosted on HCl's website :- http://wcrevival.de/hcl/exe_dll/ More information and technical help on Wing Commander, Privateer and other related games can be found here :- http://www.wcnews.com/

If you don't have the decoder card you will need this patch to run it, available from the author's website :- http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/ Much more information on the WC4 DVD and Wing Commander can be found here :- http://www.wcnews.com/