So while cleaning my room I found a bunch of virgin CDs (I wonder from where did I got them and why did I got them) and I was wondering if its possible to install a game on a CD and play the game only when the CD is in the computer.

To explain it better: I have a very VERY low end mini laptop which only has 4gb of storage from which I only have 1gb free. I want to install M&B and Neverwinter Nights but I dont have enough space for them, I want to know if there is anyway to install the game on the PC, extract all the needed content (like audio, graphics, DLLs and all that) in a CD making the game playable only when the proper CD is in my PC.

Is it possible? I already tried with the installer and it says that it cant access to the CD.

PD: I havent tried with a DVD but I will try it as soon as I get one

you should be able to extract the data(keeping the file structure) and then burn them to the cd directly. Once you start running the game from the cd the only files that should be written to your hard drive are config files and downloaded maps.(mostly small files) this is for M&B idk about NWN though.

I ran my linux computer off of a live cd for a couple of months so running a game shouldn't be a problem that I can think of.

EDIT: I'm surprised such a lowend laptop can even run M&B.. O.O

I don't think it would work well at all, for one older games tend to have the save location in the game's folder

I'd save up for an external HD personally

M&B does not save to the it's game folder (just to be clear)

but Neverwinter nights does though.
& if it's the gog version it takes about 5gb of space minimum

Hmmm...

Well, installing and then transferring to a CD/DVD might work well if it's a lot of little games, but with a 4GB hard drive, that seems iffy... I've done several games where i install them, then i make an iso and do a virtual mounting on them (which is copied to the ramdrive for speed purposes) and have had zero problems. This includes Terraria, WindForge, Torchlight, RingRunner, etc. But if it requires to save games to the game directory you're going to have issues. For my ramdrive-only approach, games like Sacred Gold, it's a problem since if i forget to transfer the saves back, or lose power, i lose ALL progress...

Seeing as you have limited drive and ram to such a degree that reminds me to when i was in a studio apartment 10+ years ago, i'd say only move/burn games that don't save to the local game directory and are a gig or less in size. You can also remove a few files (the uninstall exe and it's notes) or compact some files that won't be needed much (zip down the eula or txt files that aren't needed for the game to run).

Hmmm... you know... if you were using a Unix based system, the save to local game directory could be fixed to some degree, referring the local files to a home directory/save location instead. It would be something like: ln save ~/.saves/mygame

I'd rather go with external HDD, even cheapest will be better than DVD. The other way is SD card, your netbook should have a SD slot, or even pen drive..