trying to install microsoft windows media player....

good morning folks, I have a Dell Inspiron with Intel Pentium 4, Mobil cpu 1.70GHz, 1.19GHz with 512MB ram. It has Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2002, with service pack 3 in it. Being as it has Windows Professional in it, there is no signs of it ever having Windows Media Player, and now comes my problems.The DVD player in it is a Samsun cdrw/ dvd sn-308b, and when I place a dvd in it, the activity light flashes like it's reading the disk, but then just stops flashing and no movie shows. The hardware manager shows it's there, and says that it's working properly when trouble shooting it, but the drive appears empty when you check the computer. I tried to install a 2005 edition of windows media, but it stops and says that I need .net framework installed. I tried 4 different framework downloads from Microsoft but couldn't get them to load. Can someone please point me in the right direction, cause I'm going no-where by myself…….

Been a while since I touched xp, but from memory there is an option to install\uninstall from within Add\Remove programs - System (something like that, middle option on left I think), you can add or remove parts of the xp install you want or don't want, but as the original will certainly dated, and windows update will certainly want to update it, but as it's only a media player, and not the best at that, the easiest option is install a 3rd party media player, and VLC kicks butt, plays pretty much anything you throw at it, and if the only issue you have is not having a media player that works, this will get you sorted in a minute or so, if it doesn't report back and we can go from there.

back again…. Went there, downloaded it, installed it, got error message—– your input can't be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL "dvd:///D:/" check the log for details———- what log? and where do I find it?

From what I can see, you can find it under Tools->Messages, can't be certain but you may need to set the Verbosity to 2, hopefully it will give some clues, but when you reply with that info, please try a variety of different media, eg CD and DVD, burnt and store bought, see and report on what does\doesn't work, that may help if some do play, also what type of media are you trying to play ? Basically what is the files extension, eg .mp3 etc, just want to make sure it's the right type of file, with this info we will hopefully see a pattern emerging, then we can see what may be going on.

The problem is not Windows Media Player. The problem is the CD/DVD drive.When you open My Computer then double click on the CD/DVD drive with a disc in it, you see nothing, right. It doesn't know there is a disc in the drive.

You can try this fix from the Doug Knox web site: XP_CD-DVD-Fix.exe - Restore CD/DVD Drives to Explorer

If that doesn't fix it you need to replace the CD/DVD drive.

Also, it's not unusual for an optical drive (CD/DVD) to play and show music CDs or data CDs but not work with movie DVDs.

Also, XP comes with Windows Media Player, it's not an option. Unfortunately it does not play DVDs with installing additional codec packs. My recommendation would be to install and use VLC Media Player for DVDs and Windows Media Player for music CDs.

Well gentlemen, I'm back….. Hi Ztuker, nice to see you again. The long and the short of it is, it plays CDs, bought or burnt, and in windows media, but still won't do DVDs, bought or burnt. Downloaded the fix and ran it twice, with no change. I'll look over the log file and post it to you guys, but I'll gonna up-grade the burner anyway, newer is better. This is the first time I've ever dealt with a laptop and I'm not liking it to much. It belongs to a friend, that is either too lazy, or too stupid to read, I tend to think it's more the later….. So I'll post the log, and get the burner, one more thing, is the private browsing something that I have to change a setting for it to be able to work, under "tools" the start private browsing is shaded and won't turn on…..

You need a new drive, the reason I asked if it worked with x types of disk was to highlight if it worked on some, and not others, and the fact it works on CD's, and not DVD's means the DVD lens is dirty\faulty, so as Ztruker said it is a hardware problem, so a new drive should cure all.

Thankfully, laptop optical drives are easy to replace. You just need to make sure you get one that will fit as they all seem to use different form factors.