28th December 2001
We've talked about we how really don't want Real on our systems. A few third-party players were developed to bypass the RealBeast, but they still require the Real codecs to be installed. Never fear, Josh Waggoner says; you just need to copy over a couple of files and Registry settings to be set. Find an old (or virtual) machine to install RealPlayer onto. In the C:\ Program Files \ Common Files \ Real hierarchy, grab the contents of \Codecs, \Common, and \Plugins. In the C:\ Windows \ System (or System32) folder, grab pncrt.dll. Now, navigate to the machine's registry: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Software \ RealNetworks \ Preferences. Be sure to export three of its subkeys: \DT_Plugins, \DT_Codecs, and \DT_Common. In each case, they should point to the appropriate folder hierarchy (the ones you just copied from the Program Files folder). Copy the three folders and the DLL file back to their original locations (on your primary machine this time). Double- click the REG file to merge its contents into the Registry. Now any third-party player that requires the RealStuff should play your RealMedia without a RealHeadache. RealCool!