Reader Question: Can’t Play DVDs
Question:
I installed vista ,now I can’t get the DVDs to play. the auto play is on .cant add any of the printers I lost to this new bull shit vista why?
Answer:
I don’t have enough info to speak to your printers problem–feel free to tell me more about what specifically is going wrong.
Regarding the DVD, are you using Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Business, or Windows Vista Enterprise? If so, DVD playback isn’t included with the operating system. Only Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate include DVD playback.
If you’re not running Home Premium or Ultimate, you can follow these steps to upgrade:
- Click the Start button, and then click Control Panel.
- Click System and Maintenance.
- Click Windows Anytime Upgrade.
The Windows Anytime Upgrade window appears. You can view your current edition of Windows in the upper-right corner. Click the Upgrade link, click Begin upgrade process, and then follow the prompts that appear. If you have your Vista setup DVD, you can upgrade immediately (every Vista setup DVD contains every edition of Vista). Otherwise, you’ll need to order a DVD and wait for that to appear.
If you are running Home Premium or Ultimate and you still can’t play a DVD, you probably have some DVD playback software installed that’s not compatible with Windows Vista (like, say, an older version of PowerDVD, WinDVD, VLC Media Player, etc). Try upgrading whichever you’re using to a Vista-compatible version. As an alternative to upgrading to Vista, you could also install one of these tools to watch DVDs–just google the names.
For more information, read the Windows Vista Resource Kit (co-authored by your very own Tony Northrup). Got a question for Tony? Send an e-mail to qa@vistaclues.com.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 under Reader Questions, Upgrade to Vista, Video.
Comments: 5
Comments
Comment from Andre Albert
Time: April 7, 2007, 7:29 am
my computer has vista home version it got a virus on it and i had to get it wiped then put back on but ive lost dvd player and microsoft works what can i do to get them back
Comment from stewart
Time: January 17, 2008, 1:51 pm
hi i have been having prob playing dvds even
nero will not play it nero seven essentials it came with comp
only had it a day so nothing else on here apart from games that run slow i get this message with media player
Windows Media Player cannot play this DVD because there is a problem with digital copy protection between your DVD drive, decoder, and video card. Try installing an updated driver for your video card.
the driver is updated 256mb onboard via chrome9
and my vista is home premuim 64bit
Comment from luminye
Time: January 21, 2008, 2:06 pm
me too, i have premium vista and it says the same thing about not able to play dvd because of problem with dvd payer, decoder, and video card. I been trying to update everything but cant figure out why cant play DVD
Comment from Lmindo
Time: March 6, 2008, 3:37 am
I have Vista Home Premium and mine played DVD for the first 2 weeks and now got the same message as Stewart.
Need to fix this problem or i’m switching to XP!!!
Comment from cameron
Time: March 25, 2008, 1:05 am
I just installed Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)… everythings working fine, so i popped in Harry Potter, but nothing happens. When i click to watch the dvd in the media centre it just makes noises and loads forever without going anywhere. no error messages, just nothing……
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