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	Being new to DVDs and region "hacks", I looked around for ways a A21p with original DVD-ROM drive could play DVDs of different regions, for example region 1 (USA) and region 2 (Europe). At the end of my search I was satisfied to have learned a bit of how this all works, and to have found a good combination of software not only for the A21p, but for other systems as well (T21, etc.) If you are not sure which drive model you have, in Windows go to the System Control Panel/Hardware/Device Manager and check the drive properties. Up to 1999, most DVD drives were "region free" (or "RPC-1"), meaning that it was up to the player software to enforce the fact that the DVD could only be played in the specified region. Newer players, including those that come in ThinkPads, are "region-locked" (or "RPC-2"), meaning that the firmware in the drive itself makes the DVD contents unavailable if it does not match the allowed regions. I will not go into detail in this issue of regional divisions and rules. You may know that these regions were set up by some anti-globalization activists in the attempt to make it more difficult to sell DVDs intended for one market in another region. I believe that many countries - Australia comes to mind - have started challenging the legality of this. On the other hand, in other countries it may be illegal or against a specific distribution contract to try to sell DVDs intended for another region. I don't know how that applies to software patches, it's probably as complex and diverse as the laws in the different countries. Anyway, with RPC-1 drives it was fairly easy to make the software player play any DVD, all it took was a patch to the software. RPC-2 drives only allow a certain number of region changes, usually five, after which you cannot change the region any more. But especially if you live outside the US you often find yourself with a mix of region 1 and your own region DVDs which you need to play, so you may find it useful to be able to play them all, and not just five times. Software DVD players can usually handle both RPC-1 (in which case the software player enforces the region schemes), and RPC-2. If you patch the firmware of a RPC-2 drive so that it becomes region free (i.e. RPC-1), the player will treat it as a native RPC-1 drive, even if it is a brand new drive model. After having read that the software player that came with the ThinkPad (Mediamatics DVD Express) not only does not support RPC-1, but also creates incompatibilities with a variety of DVD software tools, and also it consistently ranks at the bottom of the best players, I looked for a better player (actually I carefully tried to pick the best, also considering these needs), and ended up preferring Power DVD (http://www.gocyberlink.com). Once you have an RPC-1 device and a software DVD player, you need an add-on that interacts with the player software to make it run any region (remember: the drive is now region free, but the software player is still designed to enforce regions when the hardware is region free, so it needs a little "help"). DVD Genie (http://www.inmatrix.com/genie/) is both a great DVD add-on tool in general, and also it works well in combination with Power DVD, detecting the region of the DVD and interacting with Power DVD on the fly. So you need: a firmware patch (which I found here: http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/), a better DVD player software, and an add-on. I also recommend playing a video DVD at least once before proceeding with the patch (or you risk losing the ability to play videos forever), and removing the software that came with the ThinkPad, even if in my case I did not experience any of the incompatibilities mentioned in some newsgroups and web sites. After a long search, having found what after several comparisons looked like a good firmware replacement, a good player (Power DVD), and a good player add-on (DVD Genie) I ended up finding it all described here by somebody who had come to the very same conclusions: http://www.pilif.ch/stuff/dvd/index.php. The firmware writer is from Matshita itself, just a few bytes of the ROM are patched, and you can save the existing version, which in my case was the same as the one mentioned in the article. The player software ranks among the top three (usually spot 1 or 2) depending on who you ask, but what counts here is the interaction between the components, such as autodetection of the area code by DVD Genie which automatically changes something in the player. The Drive Region Info tool mentioned there (not really required) uses a third party ASPI DLL (e.g. wnaspi32.dll as provided by Adaptec), which usually comes with CD-RW software. In my case it was installed by the Power DVD player.