Aw geez... I bought a new PC and bought EMC 8 to go with it, but EMC 8 doesn't seem to support the many many .CL5 files that I migrated over from my old system. I thought I was all set because when you File|Open, .CL5 is shown in the list of file extensions. But nooooo...

Anyway, please, somebody tell me that there's a workaround for this!

Alternatively, has anyone seen a specification for the CL5 format? I could write a little program to parse the files.

If you still have the the old instalation disc for the ECDC 5, it will co-exist with EMC 8. Do a custom install and dont install Direct CD.

Easy CD Creator 5 (Platinum) does install (in spite of protests from installer that WinXP is not supported), and it will open my CL5 files. But it does not recognise my fancy new CD/DVD combo drive, so I can't really use it.

So now I can *see* the playlist when I open a CL5 file, but I can't do anything with it.

Is there a way to export the playlist into some form that EMC 8 will open?

Unfortunately, the answer is "no". There isn't any way to export your .CL5 projects into any format that EMC 8 will use. Then again, ECDC 6 wouldn't open them either. Nor would ECDC 5 reliably open .CL4 files. For whatever reason, compatibility with older version project files has never been maintained in the ECDC/EMC product line, you need to rebuild the projects using the new version.

Your registry could probably be edited to trick ECDC 5 into recognizing your "fancy new CD/DVD combo drive" [are they still making them??]
Do you want to try that? If so, what is the drive ID of this Combo drive?

Open Windows' Device Manager, and click on the plus (+) next to the CD/DVD drives icon. Tell me exactly what is shown for your combo drive.
You'll need your ECDC updated with the final updater [5.3.5.10] and the "driveup" patch to do this, but the edit itself is quite simple.