How I accessed the deleted chess.com courses

Hi everyone! So, y'all might be wondering, how did i get the first part of my username? Well, I have a penchant for the Sicilian Defense, both as White and Black. Now, you may ask, how did I develop this? Well, as a matter of fact, Chess.com used to host a detailed course series consisting of modules for both the Sicilian and King's Indian Defense. Those two modules were the only interactive courses I have ever seen which had a comment for literally every move, often for 10-15 moves per lesson. Combine that with fifty opening lines and you have a virtual chess coach at your hands. 

Sometime in 2017-2019, these courses were removed. However, there is a secret. What most people don't know is that Chess Mentor used to exist in offline format, as an old archaic software. While most of the courses were copied to the new version, the two detailed and comprehensive opening courses, as well as A Kaleidescope of Openings, was not copied. Additionally, the original comments after the opponent's move was removed. Therefore, the course feels incomplete.

I spent days and days searching for this, using Windows Sandbox to test if the apps were malware. As it turned out, the only legitimate source of Chess Mentor's deluxe version was on the Pirate Bay's mirrors. Additionally, it required a torrent; there were many fake download links on the page (luckily my adblocker blocks them). When I downloaded it, I ran the installers in compatibility mode for Windows XP. Here were the results.


Job done, right? Well, not quite. Turns out, the installers for the two supplementary courses, which were these opening theory courses, were 16-bit installers, which does not work on 64-bit operating systems. To combat that, I tried installing otvdm, a 16-bit emulator, on my computer, but it did not work and gave an error message. Time to give up? Not yet. 

I knew that 32-bit operating systems were able to natively run 16-bit applications. Additionally, I have a 9950x and 96GB RAM, so running a virtual machine was not out of reach. Therefore, I found a ROM of 32-bit Windows XP and installed it onto VirtualBox. Using a shared folder, I transferred the application there and ran the two installers along with the Course Installer and Supplementary Courses. Nervously, I loaded the software through the glitchy mess of Windows XP, wondering if my days of effort had been wasted.

Finally! I tested all the variations and noticed that I remembered many of the comments on this. This is how I learned the theory behind the Sicilian Defense, when it was natively on the old site. However, if I ever need to polish something up, this would be where I go.

I hope you enjoyed my first blog post! Tell me in the comments what you want to see!

Toodles!