DVD player troubles in XP

[merk1821]

Im trying to figure out a problem on my brother's Pentium IV computer. Both WInDVD and PowerDVD refuse to play any DVD disc that are placed into either the DVD-ROm or DVD+/- RW drives. But when i use Windows Media Player 7, 9 or 10, WMP has no difficulty reading the disc. Anyone have an idea what the troubles are?

merkman out

[Jason Dunn]

When you say "refuse to play", can you be more specific? What's the error message? I'd suggest an uninstall of both, reboot, then install one and see if it works.

[merk1821]

hey Jason
Actually both programsgive the general WinXP error message and then shut themselves off efusing to play the movie. I have done uninstalls of both programs followed reboots and the installation of one program alone. The same problem oocurs. The porgrams starts up but when the play function is statred the generic Windows erro message come up and the program shuts down. Ive looked at the technical info on both and it seems that the tempermental file is a dll file. Im still stumped any ideas on whats wrong?

[Jason Dunn]

Can you give me the exact error message, specifying which file is problem? If it's something like kernel32.dll, that usually means you have a generic problem with your Windows XP installation...and one that's almost impossible to fix because it's a core Windows system file. :-( Short of a reformat and clean install, I'm not sure what to suggest. Perhaps check for a new video driver? They're notorious for causing DLL crashes.

Now this may be a dumb question, but if the DVDs play OK inside Windows Media Player, why do you need these other players to work? :-)