How to Play Xbox Discs in PCs

Microsoft's original Xbox console was the company's first attempt at a dedicated games machine and it quickly became popular, playing host to many critically and commercially acclaimed games such as "Halo," "Splinter Cell" and "Project Gotham Racing." If you have discs for these games but the Xbox they were purchased for is out of commission, you can play them on a PC by downloading emulation software: programs that simulate the hardware of the Xbox within Windows.

Download an Xbox emulator program from one of the sites in Resources. "Cxbx" is designed to run a wide variety of Xbox titles, whereas "Xeon" is built to run the original "Halo," one of the most popular games for the platform (though its programmers promise more games will be supported soon).

Double-click the downloaded file to unzip. Make a folder on your computer's hard drive called "Xbox" and move all unzipped files and folders to this drive.

Double-click the "EXE" file for your downloaded emulator to run the emulator.

Insert an Xbox game disc into the DVD drive of your computer and open your Xbox emulator's "File" menu. Choose "Open Disc" and double-click the Xbox game disc to run the game.

Open the "Settings" or "Preferences" menu and choose "Controls" to map your keyboard to the Xbox game-pad, or connect a USB joypad to simulate the feeling of Xbox gaming more authentically.