Which of these is the best way to copy protected games?...==>

[Sara2]

1. Fully install the game, apply the appropriate game-fix and burn the entire folder the game was installed in to disk, allowing the game to be played directly from the disk requiring no installation?

2. Simply copy the entire contents of the disk onto the harddrive using Windows copy command, add the game-fix to a folder somewhere within the main folder that was copied and burn the copied data back onto a CD.

3. Create a CD image using Alcohol 120%, selecting the appropriate copy protection as indicated by GameCopyWorld. Once the image is created, use a program such as WinISO or ISO Buster to add the game fix to the image so that it may be burnt to the disk as well as the image and be applied after the game is installed?

4. Use Alcoholer (from alcoholer.com) to detect the copy protection on the CD and make the necessary adjustments automatically?

Questions:

1. In what way is creating an ISO image preferable over simply copying the entire contents of the CD to your hard drive with regards to applying the game-fix?
2. Which protection should be selected in Alcohol 120% when GameCopyWorld indicates there are 2 types of copy protection used on the CD?
3. Does alcoholer need ClonyXXL installed for it to work?
4. Does alcoholer need to be running in the background of Alcohol 120% for it to work?

[Wiccan13]

I dont use any of those spiffy cdrecording software (although ive read that alcohol 120 is quite good. I use NTI. And I copy 1:1. Or you can drag and drop (in which case you need to make sure that the cd titles match). I've never had a problem, UNLESS the game was already installed on my computer. for some reason it gets funky like that, no clue!

[Rancor]

Way 1) is a crap way to do it IMHO, cause if the game needs to write any config-files or things like that, it won't be able to when running it from CD.
Also, many games make entries in the registry that won't be applied either when simplying copying the installed game... unless you install the game, export the registry settings to a file, copy that file to the CD, and remember to apply it before running the game.... simply too much of a hassle.

Way 2) is the one I personally use, and it works great when you remember to apply the appropriate cracks and stuff before burning. I like to include the latest patches too, so the game is up-to-date

Can't help with your last 4 questions, since I have no experience with Alcohol and so forth... but hope the above helped anyways

[TippeX]

option 3 will also probably completely **** up the image, making the clone fail, so you'd have to end up using a crack which defeats the purpose of using alcohol and selecting the protection profile

[lil seeker]

321 came out with games x copy. Does a nice job