MechWarrior 2: Resource Forum

For running MW2 in Vista, you need DosBox and NoCD patches, right? There is a condition in the DMCA that says that if an application will no longer run on commercially available systems, DMCA does not apply. So, does that mean that distribution of NoCD patches that are required to run games in Vista are legal?

"The current administratively-created exemptions, issued in November 2006, are:
Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA)

Does mech2.org qualify as a library or archive in that context? We're non-commercial ...

I think that would apply more to large floppy disks and such, CD's are still commercialy available.
(Sadly even floppys are still commercialy available.)

As for the no cd patches, no, none of the mech2 versions require a mech2 no cd patch to get it running.
If it did we would have another problem of DRM circumvention.