A not so stupid question

  • Thread starter Carey Frisch [MVP]
  • Start date
C

Carey Frisch [MVP]

Does the Dell PC even have a DVD drive installed?

1. Open XP's "Help and Support Center"
2. Type DVD in the search box, hit enter.
3. Click on "DVD Troubleshooter".
4. You probably need a new DVD decoder or reinstall the one you had.

DVD Support in Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/dvdplay.aspx

DVD Decoders for Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/buypacks.aspx

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

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:

| I really feel stupid but will ask anyways.
|
| Our friend upgraded his comuter and gave us his old one. It is a Dell
| Inspiron 8000. I am trying to play a DVD and cant figure out how. Can
| someone please tell me how? I am driving myself crazy.
|
| Any sites or tips would be gratefully appreciated.
|
| Kimbabheaven
|
| --
| kimbabheaven
 
K

kimbabheaven

I really feel stupid but will ask anyways.

Our friend upgraded his comuter and gave us his old one. It is a Dell
Inspiron 8000. I am trying to play a DVD and cant figure out how. Can
someone please tell me how? I am driving myself crazy.

Any sites or tips would be gratefully appreciated.

Kimbabheaven
 
V

Vanguard

kimbabheaven said:
I really feel stupid but will ask anyways.

Our friend upgraded his comuter and gave us his old one. It is a Dell
Inspiron 8000. I am trying to play a DVD and cant figure out how. Can
someone please tell me how? I am driving myself crazy.

Any sites or tips would be gratefully appreciated.
Click to expand...


If he *upgraded* his computer, sounds like *he* is the one with the legal
license for Windows and all you got was hardware. Is there a DVD player
installed?
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

kimbabheaven said:
I really feel stupid but will ask anyways.

Our friend upgraded his comuter and gave us his old one. It is a Dell
Inspiron 8000. I am trying to play a DVD and cant figure out how. Can
someone please tell me how? I am driving myself crazy.

Any sites or tips would be gratefully appreciated.
Click to expand...


Are you sure that the drive you're using is a DVD drive, not just a CD
drive?
 
L

LVTravel

This computer may or may not have had a DVD player when it was shipped. Go
to www.dell.com and then click on the Customer Service & Support under Get
Support. Once the next screen appears type in the Service Tag information
(located on the bottom of the laptop) into the Service Tag field. This will
hopefully take you to the originally equipped information. Another way to
definitely get the information is to use a program like Everest
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html (download the commercial version
and use as trial for 30 days) or Belarc Advisor
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html and see what it says.

Since the system has a Mobile Pentium III processor it may not be the
spunkiest system when running XP but you should be OK. I had a PIII 800 MHz
system laptop and it ran XP Pro pretty good after I turned off all the eye
candy.

You also need some type of DVD playing software. Windows Media Player 10
will play DVDs but since I have other DVD playing software installed on all
my systems, I can't advise how good it works.
 
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