Patrick Keenan wrote:
> "Matt" <matt@themattfella.xxxyyz.com> wrote in message
> news:XCG1k.21532$mM.4619@fe115.usenetserver.com...
>> 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.