I have some old VHS tapes I wanted to convert to digital format and I dug out my Plextor video recorder. Back around 2005-2008 it was used heavily to convert several VHS tapes to MP4s and AVI files. Then it was connected to my Windows XP computer which is no longer with me. It might have been sold to a client of mine.

Now it’s 13 years later and I needed a computer operating system which would recognize the Plextor. The Plextor software works on Windows XP and 2000. In my computer inventory I keep older computers with older operating systems just for this kind of situation. I really liked Windows 2000 and had it on some business laptops and one of my desktops in my office. It might have been the first computer I had dual monitors attached to but I can’t recall for sure. The Plextor worked on my Windows 2000 laptop after l installed the driver in control panel. The VHS tape was started in the recorder and the Plextor convertor recognized the tape. The recording process was started and after 30 minutes, the Plextor program froze. I tried it again and the same thing happened. The video program must have overwhelmed the laptop’s 256MB.

It looks like I’ll be looking for a laptop with WinXP or 2000 with over 256MB RAM to get this going.