So who took advantage of EA's Anniversary present?
 

...And legally downloaded Command & Conquer (1) Tiberian Dawn?

For those of you who don't know (and I doubt there are any), EA has put ISO of the original Command & Conquer CDs, the game that started it all, as a nostalgic present for the series' fans for its 12th anniversary.

EA Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars - News

I downloaded this game as well, for nostalgic purposes, but actually I never really played that game through (played it with my friend a few times but never myself, since I don't own the game), and now that I play it again, I found it surprisingly fun. Unlike newer "2nd generation" games like Red Alert2 and Tiberian Sun, it's in fact pretty HARD, I found myself having to restart a mission and trying different tactics in order to complete it. The technological advancements go slowly as well (in the GDI Campaign, I don't think you can even construct a tank until the 7th level). The cutscenes are nice, and another little thing I like about this game is how they give you short geographical information about every country you are about to fight in. That's really cool. So, what are you waiting for? Download the game and post your impressions! :D

I notice the installation instruction manual says Windows XP. Will it work for Vista (and mac for those who use mac)?

They also said to burn it on a CD. hmm don't have any RW CD's atm... so I'll use daemon tools.

Edit: wait how do I use the daemon tool? oh well gonna use alcohol 120% to "burn" them into an iso file instead of a disc. use daemon tools to virtually read it. I'll see if that works

ah crap I extracted them using winrar when I shouldn't have because it was an iso file already. If you want to play it without a CD, download daemon tools.

I already have TD in both versions, no need to waste the time :P

Ok It's up and running now. yay! here are the instructions to install CnC95 on Windows XP/Vista WITHOUT a CD.

Download Daemon Tools
Disc-Tools.com - Published Software Download. If you have a 32bit OS download the first one at the top. If you have a 64bit OS, download the second one.
Install Daemon Tools. Shouldn't be too hard.

Download
Download the iso files at EA's official CnC website that Anton Slavik has provided. Save them to your desktop.

Installing
You should see a Daemon Tools icon in the lower-right task bar. left-click on the icon and it will say Device 0: [?:] No Media. click on it, find the iso file you downloaded, and a splash screen comes up.

Preparing to Install

• Skipped
• Open My Computer and explore the CD
• Right click either the install.exe or setup.exe
• select PROPERTIES
• Select the COMPATIBILITY tab
• Check the check box for “Run this program in compatibility mode for”
• Select WINDOWS 95 from the drop down menu
• Click APPLY then OK
• Double click the .exe file you just modified to launch it

Installing the Game

• When you’re prompted to update DirectX, uncheck the check box so you won’t install it. It is extremely important not to install this DirectX update
• Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. Note: Installing Westwood Chat is not required, it can be canceled if you desire. AND do not install Adobe Reader 3.0

Installing the Patch

• Visit ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/ccgold and download CCGOLDXPPATCH.ZIP
• Unzip the files and copy thipx32.dll into the install directory of the game (default path is c:\WESTWOOD\C&C95). You may overwrite the old version of the .dll file
• Download patch v1.22 to the main directory. double click on it and that's all you have to do.

Note: the filepath does not exist. try googling for the patch.

Preparing to Run the Game

• Go to the install directory of the game (default path is c:\WESTWOOD\C&C95)
• Right click C&C95.exe
• Select PROPERTIES
• Select the COMPATIBILITY tab
• Check the check box for “Run this program in compatibility mode for”
• Select Windows 95 from the drop down menu
• Check the check box for “Disable visual themes”
• Check the check box for “Turn off advanced text services for the program” Note: Windows Vista does not have this, but the game will run ok.
• click APPLY then OK

If the graphics looks messed up in Vista, try disabling "Disable desktop composition/Disable display scaling on high DPI settings"

Restart the computer if you haven't done so.
PLAY! Have Fun!

I don't know about Vista or Mac, but as for me, I use XP, and even though I followed the instructions they gave along, I still had to download some extra dll to make the game work.