I had no problem with my red DVD/CD player. I pluged it in and worked immediately in my three laptops.  I have a ten year old HP laptop that I don't use much, but I pluged the external USB in it just to see if it would work on an old one, and it worked fine. I bought this DVD/CD player to use with a netbook that I bought, but it has not arrived yet, so I can not tell if it will work in the netbook. If I have any problems with it I will update this review later on.