The program may check for the volume label on the CD. If this is the case, you could create a small partition on your hard drive with that label but that seems like a lot of trouble.
thewiz, I had not thought of that. If that is what it does it certainly is not worth the trouble of making a new partition, although… if I change the volume label of C: to match the CDROM I guess it should not matter to anything else… how would the game check for the volume label?
Any ideas on where the IRmon program is starting from?
Does the game itself have an INI file, either in the folder where it is installed or in the Windows folder? If so, the path the CD-ROM player may be there.
Ugly
Here’s another Q about annoying startup progs. How do I get rid of task scheduler coming up automatically at boot? I tried turning off taskmon, but that’s not it. 
Within the program itself, it would be really easy to get the cd drive letter from the registry, read the volume label, and compare it to some internal string. Put the cd in and then look in Explorer to see what label is displayed next to your cd drive letter.
RJKUgly, Good thinking! I found an INI file in the windows directory and it does have a “CDDIR: E:” and I tried changing it but still no dice. It also has a long string identifying the machine and I do not know why this would be useful. Anyway, it may be the volume label thing as thewiz says but i think I’ll stop experimenting now before I do some major damage. My last accident is still too close.
Democritus, I also hate that task scheduler but I think all you have to do to stop it from appearing on the system tray is to delete all scheduled tasks. It does not show up in my system tray although it does show up under MY COMPUTER in windows explorer. it is just a folder that is empty and I do not think you can get rid of it although maybe you can hack the registry and get rid of it. I also have no use for it.
I guess we’ve given up on trying to identify what may be launching IRMON.EXE ,
Sometimes the only way to get rid of the program is to reinstall it & then use it’s uninstaller. There are other programs that can install if it doesn’t have an uninstaller; but you often have to install the program in order for the uninstaller program to uninstall.
Also, run the ‘detect new hardware wizard’ & see if that works on it.
Ok, a few answers for you guys.
Democritus:
You stop task scheduler from running from inside the program. You launch it by double-clicking the system tray icon, then click Advanced|Stop using Task Scheduler. Once you close it, it’s done until you enable it again manually.
Sailor:
copying a cd to the disk and running it without the disk: More trouble than it’s worth. There are programs that will mount a directory to emulate a cdrom, but if the copy protection is worth a damn, it won’t work. Several ways they check for the CD, such as writing to the disk. If it can, it’s not a CD. Checking volume label. Not very sophisticated, but easy so most people still use it. Verifying checksum on specific sectors. This is tough to beat. Basically the disk can be physically damaged (intentionally) on certain areas, and return errors on a read, or they can be assigned invalid checksums when being written. If cluster a51d6 has a valid checksum, then you’re not using the original disk. S.O.L.
and Your original question: The best way to turn off Irda is to disable the hardware in the bios setup. This will keep it from being detected every time you boot. Alternatively, you can go into device manager and disable the drivers. But if it’s not PnP hardware (my laptop IR isn’t), it’s still taking up resources whether it’s in use or not. So the first way is still the best. Unless I’m mistaken, IRMON is launched by the driver itself, not by the OS.
Also, you can stop startup programs from running, as jbird3000 suggested, by running msconfig.exe. Go to START, RUN, and type msconfig. Do a selective startup, and go to the start tab, and unclick the program (taskmon.exe, for example) you don’t want. Restart your computer.
And, just a gentle reminder, if you poke around with your registry, back it up before you make any changes. If things get a little out of hand, but you’re able to get into windows, you can import your old registry. If things get really mucked up, you can restart your computer with a “scanreg /restore” and choose a date when your computer started successfully.
>> Also, you can stop startup programs from running, as jbird3000 suggested, by running msconfig.exe
brachyrhynchos, you are missing the point here. Forst, msconfig is WIN98, not WIN95. Second, all it does is provide a way of doing the same things I can do manually, it does nothing more than edit the registry and other system files. So, it would not find what is launching IRMON.
Backing up the registry before messing with it is, of course, good advice. I always give good advice, but do not necessarily follow my own advice. As I said, I have been extremely lucky with this (or maybe I just know what I am doing more than I give myself credit for).
Joe_Cool, excellent advice. I disable the task scheduler as soon as I finish installing Windows, so I did not remember well.
Regarding trying to run the game without the CDROM in the drive, I’ll take your advice and give up. It really is no big deal. Just that I like to tinker and it would be good to have the drive free for music.
Regarding disabling the IrDA port at the BIOS level, I think I will leave things as they are. I just have hidden IRMON.EXE so it doesn’t run at startup. If I ever want to use the IR port, I can just rename it back. I just do not like to see it running when I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL. I like to run as few background things as possible.
Right now, the only things I have running are Explorer (the desktop), the sound control and the wheel mouse programs. I see computers that are bogged down by a ton of unneeded stuff running (and, possibly causing conflicts).
One other question, while I have your attention. When I eject the floppy while WIN95 is reading it, I just get a message from windows saying it could not read it. But if I eject the CDROM while it is being read I get the Blue Screen (although I can ususally recover). Why is this? Some way to get around it?
Re: The game, what game is it? If it’s an older one (1 or 2 years at least), you probably can use fakecd or some variant to make it work without the disk.
The blue screen you get when you eject a cd is not the same one as when you get a fatal exception. It’s basically equivalent to the message you get when ejecting a floppy. There’s no way to avoid it, short of hacking the windows error message subsystem, but it’s harmless. Just hit escape, and you’re continuing with no problems.
Nah, not worth the trouble. I’ll just leave the CDROM inserted in the drive. It was more curiosity than anything else. If there was a very easy way to do it, then I would do it but it is not worth my time.
Same thing regarding the IrDA. I’ll just leave the program hidden and unhide it when I want to use it.
Regarding the blue screen, maybe it is just the association with the blue scree of death but I would rather see a friendly warning from windows that to see windows suspended by the blue screen, even if it is not serious. I just wonder why this is so and Windows doesn’t issue the same error message for the floppy and the CDROM drives.
If you can’t find where it’s starting by the usual methods – and it sounds like you’ve triead all of them – then it’s time for the slightly more radical.
That program may be getting started by some other program rather than directly by Windows. The solution is to rename the executable file to something else or temporarily move it into another directory. Then reboot the system and see what complains. If the system runs okay for a couple of weeks without it, you can probably delete the file.
“would rather see a friendly warning from windows”
If you want that, you have to get another program, like Norton CrashGuard.
sailor, Windows Millennium is coming out in about four days, $49 or $45 at Costco. Maybe that’ll do something for ya?
Aramis, if you read the thread you will see that is what I did.
Handy, I am running OSR2 on this computer and I do not think I’ll upgrade it, at least not for now. It would be way too much hassle. I will probably wait until I replace the entire system in a year or two.
Actually I do have Norton Crashguard. I have had it for over a year and I haven’t even torn the shrink wrap on it. maybe some day I’ll play with it.