S&T DVD Collection -unable to access!!!!

[Merlin66]

I have the S&T DVD's which no longer want to play with my Win 10 64 PC.
I can access the Index and see the covers of the individual monthly issues, BUT when trying to load the month to see the pages.....nothing!!! just hangs.
(Chrome keeps telling me that Adobe Flash, which seems to be at the "core" of this collection will no longer be supported beyond 2020)

Has anyone experienced the same problem? If so, what was the solution.

[h0ughy]

Not sure why, I will admit I haven't used mine for a few years. Will have to check

[anthony.tony]

I have collection of S&T .l can only access it with an old comuter running windows XP.

[OICURMT]

What's the file extension on the individual issues? if it's a .flv file, then you should be able to use one of the many free players to open and read the file.

[Merlin66]

Interesting suggestion....
I'll check the DVD folders and files and let you know.
Ken

[Merlin66]

Ok,
Had a look at the folders/ files on the DVD.....
As I said the upfront index gets you to the monthly issue...but when opened, it just hangs....
Doesn't make any sense to me, but maybe you can see something to follow up>

[iborg]

Hi Ken


From the screenshots, it looks as though you are not seeing the file extensions when you are looking at the filenames.


Try checking what the extensions are, that may give an idea as to how to read the files directly.


From the 2nd photo, it looks as though there should be PDF's on the disk.


Philip

[Merlin66]

Philip,
Thanks.
I haven't found any .pdf files.
According to replies from a US forum, the technology used by S&T is restrictive and appears to be "designed" for the features available at the time in Win XP, and not now available within Win10.
Bottom line seems to be, if you want to get any value out of the DVD set, find an old XP machine to run them on.....

Such is life!
Never had any problems reading my books from the early 1800's......

[Nikolas]

I have an old xp machine for sale in the classifieds, going cheap as chips though you;ll have to add a dvd player to it

[Merlin66]

Nik,
Thanks mate, but I'll recover the ol' XP I gave to the kids....hope it still works!

[astro744]

Works fine on my Windows 10 Pro 64bit 1st gen. i7 machine. (Worked fine under Win 7 previously too). I'm using Microsoft Edge browser and have Adobe Flash Player (32-bit) installed.

There was a fix put out by S&T years ago to get the DVDs to play after some update to Flash player.

See https://www.skyandtelescope.com/sky-and-telescope-magazine/fix-sky-telescope-dvd-cd-adobe-flash/

This adds your DVDs drive letter to the Adobe Flash Trusted path. You have to apply the fix to each new computer you use the DVDs on but only once.

I don't use Chrome so cannot comment on it.

[Merlin66]

YES! YES! YES!

You’re my hero:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
Missed that S&T page!
Got it working!

Only issue....the index.html wants to open MS Edge browser (!!!) and fails to show the pages.
Right click on index.html and "Open with..." and select Chrome.
(Although Chrome is set to the default???)

Anyway....success!
Many thanks, appreciated

[astro744]

No worries, glad I could help.😊

[Dennis]

Hi Ken

Slightly different to your experience, but I have some Warren Keller PixInsight Tutorials (on an external SSD) and sometime ago, they "stopped working" giving me all sorts of errors related variously to Adobe Flash Player, Java, Shockwave or Camtasia Player.

After making all the necessary changes in MS Edge, IE11 and FireFox, none of these Browsers would run the Tutorials, so I resigned myself to these becoming obsolete due to SW/technology changes.:sadeyes:

I then downloaded Opera (free Browser) and whoopee...the Tutorials ran as normal.:):thumbsup:

Not sure if I accidentally fixed something along the way, or whether Windows Updates did anything, or maybe the planets all lined up, but the end result is I can now re-visit these resurrected Tutorials.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Merlin66]

OK.
Still trying to find out what happens Re. access to these DVD's when Flash is dumped next year....

The best I can find is to maintain a PC with (in my case) Chrome installed WHICH STILL HAS FLASH as a plug-in and keep it away from any internet connections where there is a possible for Google "magically" updating Chrome to the latest version - which will NOT contain Flash.
I'm not 100% sure I've managed to "disable Chrome updates" successfully, but live in hope.

EDIT: Found the ol' DELL XP laptop says " no longer supported - no Chrome updates available"
Still runs the DVD's 100% Looks like that will be my "reading" machine.

[Merlin66]

Raised the issue with Peter Tyson, Editor of S&T.....
His reply:
"""
We’re still transitioning to new ownership, but our hope is to put hi-res scans of all S&T’s online behind a paywall, rather than going the DVD route. Stay tuned.
"""

[h0ughy]

Well that certainly fixes nothing except their pockets, does nothing for those that have already paid

[luka]

I think that virtualisation is the solution for using the old stuff. I would:
1. Install XP/Win7 in a virtual machine (Virtualbox (https://www.virtualbox.org/) for example).
2. Leave the network adapter disconnected so that the virtual machine is disconnected from the internet.
3. Use USB sticks/file sharing to install flash or whatever else is needed.
4. Make images from the S&T DVDs.
5. Mount the ISO image in the virtual machine.

If possible maybe even copy the files from the DVDs to the virtual machine and access them internally from Windows.

[Merlin66]

Luka,

The DVD's need a browser which has Adobe Flash built in....
Not sure how you can get a ol' version of a browser (say Chrome) to install on a "new" XP machine.....

[luka]

XP comes with Internet Explorer which possibly already has the Flash plugin. Not sure about that one.
But you can just download the Flash plugin here (https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/) and install it.

Also I would not use a modern browser like Chrome on XP (I doubt it would even run on XP). Either use Internet Explorer (already bundled) or get an old version of Firefox that supported XP.

[Merlin66]

Luke,
Understood.
I must be lucky, the XP laptop definitely runs Chrome (Ver 49.0.2623.112).
Ken

[astro744]

The index DVD has version 10 of Flash Player exe for both Win (IE Active X and plug-in based browsers) and for Mac OS X. Not sure if this helps and whether these can be installed on a newer system.

[luka]

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_version_history) that is the latest Chrome that runs on XP. It is from 2016.

@astro744, that simplifies things even more. Install XP in a virtualbox and install the flash player from the DVD. Done.

By the way, I would NOT recommend installing Flash on a system that is currently used for web browsing. It is full of security holes and that is one of the main reasons the industry has moved away from it.