Rolling Stone: 40 Years of Rolling Stone Magazine on 3 Searchable DVD-Roms

I am not sure if this is the proper forum for this post but I'll give it a go.

I own the R.S.: 40 Years of Rolling Stone Magazine on 3 Searchable DVD-Roms. I have not opened the box since I bought it many years ago. Upon installing the first disc, I am unable to open the remaining 3/4 discs. I have a PC with a Windows 7 Professional operating system. Anyway, I am wondering if this product is not supported anymore (which I am guessing is the case), or is there something I am missing to be able to open the discs, which my system is unable to do. I am ready to just buy the latest edition of this item.

Sorry for the technical question, but because it is music related, that is the reason I posted. Any help/support would be greatly appreciated.

 

I don't think there's a latest version of this, and I also think the company that made this (they were also going to do Playboy by the decade and I don't think they got past the 50's) went out of business. You may still be able to find the right reader software somewhere online though. I have this also but haven't checked it out in ages.

 

One could really torture oneself reading their insane reviews

 

I used to own this. If I recall, the issues are PDFs. You should be able to open them using Adobe Acrobat. The only thing you won’t have is the searching ability that the Bondi Reader software provided.

 

Here's the patch download to fix it.

Wayback Machine

 

And this post is helpful to the OP in what way? Why is it in any thread about Rolling Stone magazine do the haters come out?

 

The patch worked for me and I ended up saving all three discs to my PC - pretty handy.

 

Hmmm. I tried but the patch won't open on my Mac.

 

I’d love something like this for UK mags like Record Mirror, Disc and NME...

 

You may be able to run it in XP compatibility mode.

 

So after uninstalling Rolling Stone download and re-installing, I get SOFTWARE NOT FOUND warning.

I am stuck

 

Did you mean inane? Well...they're both actually.

 

Because it's so easy ( and fun ) to hate on it !

 

L

 

They did a 60s Playboy set in addition to the 50s one, but IIRC never finished the decade-by-decade series before eventually releasing a portable hard drive containing the complete run of issues (up to that point) which was also powered by the Bondi Reader software.

 

So you uninstalled the software you previously installed from the DVD, then installed the patch from the Wayback Machine link? The patch isn't the complete install, it just installs an update that enables the original software to be able to run under newer versions of the Windows OS. You need to have the Reader software from the DVDs installed before you install the patch - if you don't, that's why you're getting the error message.

 

Not as torturous as listening to The Final Cut, but I agree with your point.

 

Well, that did not help. But looking closer to the requirements, one requirements that is required is XP service pack 2, vista, windows 2000. I have service pack 1. So I am assuming I can not download the Bondi Reader.

 

That may well be an issue. It's been a long time since I was running XP, but I do recall software that would not run on SP1 and required SP2. I suspect almost everyone that is still running XP now is on SP2, so you might want to consider upgrading if it's feasible to do so.

The requirements list omits mention of newer versions of Windows, but many folks (including myself) have confirmed that the patch works on Windows 7, and someone in the other thread here about the Bondi Reader software also got it to work on Windows 10:

Question about Rolling Stone "Cover to Cover"

Edit: I just reread your original post, and I thought you said you were running Win 7 Professional? If that's the case, it should work.

 

Wish they would release an updated set to cover the last 10 years, but that looks unlikely.

 

Probably should have added that I was using Windows 10

 

Many people including myself have wrestled with this DVD collection which originally retailed for $149.95, then over the years the price dropped to as low as $20 as mentioned above. Amazon still lists it and it is at an excellent low price. Even at the original collection price of $149.95 this still only about $0.16 per issue. The issues have sentimental value. Unfortunately, this Bondi Browser application was abandoned by the creator very soon after it was published in 2007 and you are holding a possibly lost treasure locked on three DVD disks. However, Bondi or somebody else issued a patch 1.2, saved it in an obscure Google server which now makes the application work in 64bit Windows versions, 7, Vista,8, 8.1 and 10 - for now. But looking to the future how long will the patch 1.2 work?

I have installed the Bondi Browser on a Windows 10 PC (Winver = Build 18362.418) and it works only with the patch mentioned above (Ref Wayback Machine). The Bondi Browser accesses password protected DJVU files. To ensure future file access in future operating systems and to save the original DJVU files to an unprotected PDF file you open the Bondi Browser then select an RS issue and print pages C1, page 1-71 (first to last page as shown in contents) and C4 into three separate PDF files using Windows 10 "Microsoft Print to PDF", Then assemble these files in Adobe Acrobat ( I use version X (10)) or other PDF editor. This takes about 5-10 minutes per issue. Unfortunately, the process is not always this simple as there are problems with the Bondi application that can vary in some magazine issues. Some pages cannot be printed, instead they are copied from screen with Windows Snip then imported to Adobe Acrobat as JPG file. Inserts with page numbers S1...S21 or similar inserts like the San Francisco Flyer must be printed in > View > Flip Mode two pages at a time to PDF files. In my estimation the entire conversion process of the entire RS collection would take about ~ 960 issues x 12.5 minutes = north of 200 hours. While most or at least many RS issues may take only 5-6 minutes to convert once you established your best workflow some RS issues have problems and one conversion may take 20-30 minutes each or a few dozen issues. After the conversion the PDF files are graphics files and cannot be searched for key words. Therefore, you still need to execute OCR text recognition in Adobe Acrobat to enable text search, fortunately this can be executed as batch process in the background. Finally, you will not have the index capability as in Bondi (which is limited to search by contributor, category, year and issue number, but not artist) but your converted files should last forever as long as PDF formats exist. But then, if the index was by artist you will get some 2-3000 hits when searching for e.g. Eric Clapton or Bob Dylan.

Alternatively, without the Bondi 1.2 patch you can install the application in Windows 10 Pro (also W8.1 Pro) using the Hyper-V functionality (which must be activated) and install Windows XP (if you have the original XP disk. Bondi 1.0 will run in that Hyper-v window and will do everything I describe above. I have tested this file conversion alternative until I found the 1.2 patch in this forum. Likely Hyper-V in Windows Pro versions will last into the future so Bondi Browser 1.0 is still able to run in prior Windows 1995 or XP versions and you can read and print RS issues in the foreseeable future.

When I compare the file sizes between the password protected DJVU file and my new unprotected PDF file after OCR was run the new file size is not much higher. This begs the question why RS did not use more common archive password protected PDF files using Adobe Projector (unfortunately another obsolete archive application). Also, will the new owners of RS magazine in the future publish another DVD collection that links with RS 1026 found on Cover-to-Cover?

 

Thank you for your most detailed reply. However, now I understand that using this DVD is not as straight forward as it should be/as I want it to be. Therefore, I have not succeeded in opening this DVD and will hope that a better one will be released in the future.

 

OK, so this !@#!?! program is obsolete and will not run. I've had a passion for finding aNYone who worked on it to help me deconstruct the protocol years ago without luck; under an older OS (Apple), I was able to open issues and save as PDFs; I have given my son-in-law the first 150 issues that way, and I have the first 47 issues here as PDFs as well, with the intend years back to recopy every issue (sorry online archivers; me no like to with the owners fight but I bought this box at retail and feel truly screwed. I wanna OWN what I own and open what the discs have). THAT SAID, anybody wanting the first 4 dozen issues is welcome to copies. I just need to set up either an older Mac that can run, open and translate these or a virtual OS that can.

The sad part is that they did a lousy job scanning and saving pages; some repetition and some missing pages (you can't have an odd number of pages and tell me that's correct; magazines are created in even-numbers of pages in signatures).

Anybody translate them all already? Happy to pay for a copy if you've done the work!