My work laptop played DVD’s just fine (Dell D600 with XP professional). I had an issue with it and had to have it “re-imaged” (whatever that is). Now it doesn’t play DVD’s. I don’t think I lost a specific program, but maybe I did.
Did the old XP allow for playing DVD’s and something has changed so that DVD’s aren’t allowed to be played. One of my co-workers mentioned that Window’s is not allowed to play DVD’s because of some ‘handwaving’ disagreements. I don’t know what he’s talking about…all I know is that I used to be able to play DVD’s and now I can’t.
Has something changed that is somewhat common knowledge, but I’m not in the loop?
Since it is a work laptop, have you asked your IT folks? Perhaps the reimage deliberately disabled the ability to play DVDs.
Also, the newer version of Windows Media player (for XP) requires an external codecs that does not come with the software. Microsoft wants you buy their codecs instead of giving it away.
You can search for and free or open source media players on the web. But bear in kind if the reimage is to deliberately disable DVD use you would be SOL.
A re-image means that IT took a complete image of a hard drive (with Windows, programs, settings, everything all pre-set up) and basically pasted it over your hard drive. It’s so they don’t have to do everything by hand. It’s possible that the image was set to disable DVDs, or it’s possible that they simply forgot to include drivers or codecs for your particular computer in the image.
Definitely check with them first. If there’s a business need for you to play DVDs, then there’s no reason they can’t make it work.
Get yourself a copy of VLC Media Player from PortableApps.com. It installs completely self-contained (so you don’t have to be an administrator to install it) and it plays DVDs.
Sorry, I meant to say MPlayer Portable. VLC probably will do the trick, too, it’s just that I don’t have experience with it to be able to recommend it.