Vista Will Not Play Movies

ronholton
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:12 pm Post subject: Vista Will Not Play Movies · Quote · Edit · Delete · IP


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I have Vista Ultimate, and appreciate the sympathies. Of course the Ultimate edition includes the Media Center. When I click on "Windows Vista demos" in the "Windows Welcome Center" I get;

"Windows Media Player cannot perform the requested action at this time."

When I click on "Web Help" I get the following.

"You've encountered error message C00D11D4 while using Windows Media Player. Additional information is not currently available for this error."

When I go to the Media Center, and click on one of the sample shows I get.

"Windows Media Center has stopped working. .......will notify you when a solution becomes available."

Does anyone have a clue as to what is going on here?

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novice57
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject: · Quote · Edit · Delete · IP


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Vista's developers decided to play detective and put code into the OS that detected pirated movies and audio. If these were detected on the drive or an attempt to play them online was made the entire OS would go into "crippled" mode and your only option was to reload it and beg M$ for forgiveness and a new registration. As one can imagine, the thought of an OS playing media cop didn't set well and M$ quickly backpedaled. I believe that they were to attempt to cripple the cripple code in a recent update and this could be a source of your trouble.

I tested Vista for a few months before the final release, but declined their offer of a freebie copy. It didn't play well with my network and the only game that it wanted to play was hide and seek. It would see the network one hour and then lose it for the next four, only to find it again. No settings could be found that would alter it's behavior and M$ offered no resolution to any of the tickets that I submitted. The strange part was that it would see the router and the cable modem at all times. I think that having Linux and Unix on the network gave Vista feelings of inadequacy and effected it's performance.

I have used Microsoft products at home and work since the introduction of DOS, but I am quite sure that my relationship with them is over. They aren't accepting this well and refuse to take my name from the developer board. They keep sending me mail as if I had never sent them a scathing revue of their latest mistake and their little brother, MSN, refuses to block their messages. If M$ was an x-wife I would have a restraining order by now, and I now know what it is to be stalked.

I will retain enough contact with their new features to enable me to offer some knowledgeable advice here, but I am now using Kubuntu Linux almost exclusively for any serious work. If you ever get a chance to try it out I advise that you do so. The software is free and the support is easy to find. You can even run it from a disk without doing the actual install until you decide if it is for you. With all of the learning curve associated with Vista, I would imagine that many are jumping ship to Linux. If you have to learn something new it might as well save you $400 for your trouble.
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ronholton
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:36 pm Post subject: · Quote · Edit · Delete · IP


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Novice, you are a wise person. I would not be using Vista were it not for the fact that our vendors (it is a new office pc) only loads them that way.

"Well then." You may ask. "Why don't you use IT?"

That is another story, too long to go into here.

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novice57
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: · Quote · Edit · Delete · IP


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It is unusual to see Vista Ultimate in a networked business setting, but I see no reason for it not to work, albeit in a strange fashion. I do see your need for the media center features and those are the one shining star in Microsoft's resume. Linux offers many media players and powerpoint replacements, but none of them measure up well to MP 11. I think that the Linux developers grouped media players with gamer functions and just never took them seriously.

Anyone who is familiar with the Windows core knows that Vista could have been easily introduced as an automatic update to XP. There is not that much change to the core functionality of the OS to warrant the hype and certainly not the price.

Vista is payback to the hardware mfgrs for their steadfast commitment to M$. Dell is now offering "no OS" versions of their upper end models and is taking feedback from Linux users about which distro would make the most sense to be pre-loaded as a lowered price option to M$. They have had so many requests for these options on the lower cost machines that won't do well with Vista that they have finally seen the light. I have an old version of Red Hat enterprise on a 667mhtz Intel system that will run rings around Vista on my Pent D 3.02 powerhouse. Only the difference in the video cards would fool one into thinking that the Vista machine is faster.
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ronholton
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject: Problem Solved · Quote · Edit · Delete · IP


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It was a matter of installing the correct driver. I had checked that initially but kept getting the message that the latest driver had been installed. But after doing a manual search and download things are fine.

By the way, when the computer was delivered, I had XP loaded on one of the drives. So if I really get frustrated, I reboot on that partition. Thanks for the help.