Laptop won't play commercial movies

I have an HP laptop running Windows Vista. It used to play movies just fine. Now it plays commercial movies with the picture blocked. Copies of commercial movies play just fine. I think Windows Update might have added something to make this happen, but I am not sure. Any idea? If I can't find a fix, I will have to do a restore to test this theory. Thanks.

 

Which program are you using to play these? If WMP, it is very likely Windows Update snuck something in.

 

Kmplayer and VLC. I have never tried WMP. I am going to try right now to see what happens.

WMP plays everything just fine. Somehow Microsoft has managed to force me to use WMP. Thanks for mentioning WMP. Otherwise, I never would have thought about it. I guess I will have to use it. I don't think it's worth doing a restore over. On the hand, doing a restore is the only way to find out for sure.

Wanted to, but can't rep you again.

 

'free' media players sometimes have problems playing DRM protected titles.

This has little to do with msft and everything to do with the publishers. msft updates the drm capabilities of it's player as the publishers change their drm methods and keys. The free players are often well behind these updates if they even try to keep up.

 

These are old DVDs that worked before. If they worked before, I don't see how else to explain the fact that they don't work now.