DVD Playback in Vista Business

[slvrldy17]

Perhaps y'all will help out a 50+ year old lady newbie. I'm working with an OEM version of Vista Business and would like to simply be able to playback a DVD movie from time to time. I've loaded and tried the free Vista codec package (sharkey's), Power DVD 5 and 6 OEM's with no success - WMP 11 says that there is no DVD playback software installed - Nero 7 essentials is a 30 day trial and gives video but no audio and I can't afford to buy it any case. What I need is something that will work to play DVD's from time to time preferably a free application. Would really prefer to use WMP 11 if possible - I like it's appearance and have used it for some time in XP. Thanks for your time.

Alice

[foxyshadis]

I would uninstall the codec pack, and install something like SMplayer (http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/), GOM Player (http://www.gomplayer.com/), MPC-HC (http://tibrium.neuf.fr/). All of them have DVD support built-in, and I think they all support Vista, can't recall offhand. There are others, like VLC, but the interface isn't worth the trouble of figuring out. It's possible that by installing ffdshow (http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/) and enabling MPEG-2 decoding on install it'll work, but that depends on if several other necessary components are there already. If not, I suppose I can test at work tomorrow and find something that does work.

(Welcome!)

[slvrldy17]

Thanks for the reply foxyshadis! I've removed the codec package as you recommended since it wasn't working anyway. Since I work for a large church I checked with one of our pastors who got a new HP laptop recently with Vista Business on it that plays DVD's very well. The add/remove programs panel shows that some version of Win DVD was installed by HP (no version # shown). So when I get home later I'll try a borrowed OEM disc of Win DVD 5 that is floating around the office here. If that doesn't work I can try both Media Player Classic and VLC - I've used them with an XP pro install successfully - but you are right - the interfaces on both are somewhat clunky and I'd prefer to stick with WMP 11 if I can. Between us we'll figure out something that will work I'm sure - thanks for the help so far.

Alice

[slvrldy17]

The Win DVD5 OEM disc that came with an internal CD/DVD RW drive that we are using at our church worked! DVD play back works as well as I could ask for - if it will play Star Wars episode 3 for the grandkids it should work for anything I need! Thanks to foxyshadis for the help - when doing the install the only thing that is not a default choice is to clear any check boxes for Win DVD to be the default player for MPEG2 etc. - WMP 11 works fine this way. If you need DVD playback in Vista Business this would seem to be the way to go.

Thanks,

Alice