Hi Folks,
Please can anyone help with the following:
My brother has 100s of songs on his pc (WinXP Home) which he has ripped, over quite a long time, from CDs. They are all in wma protected format as he didn't uncheck the protect box when he ripped them.
However, he has been playing them without any problems until he recently upgraded to WMPlayer 11.
Now none of his songs will play.
He gets a message saying the correct codec is not present, despite having downloaded and installed all known codec packs for wmp and many others.
He has tried importing into iTunes but gets a message saying the file is protected.
Now the strange thing is that I got him to e-mail me one of the "problem" songs.
When I opened it I got a message saying the playlist could not be created.
I'm on Windows XP Pro (WMPlayer 10) and I have a dual boot, one for general use and internet and one which I keep for doing video editing.
On my video editing system, when I clicked the problem file , it connected to the web and asked if I wanted to download a licence.
I said yes, down came the licence, then the file opened and played.
I then took the file to my daughter's pc (WinXP Home) and here too, it connected to the web and downloaded a licence, then played ok.
So what is going on please?
Can anyone suggest how I (and hence my brother) can get this file to play on WMP11?
Thanks in advance.

So nobody understands the vaguaries of DRM or WMPlayer on different systems?
OK, so please help me by downloading this test track (Andrea Bocelli) and let me know if you can play it on your pc.
http://www.geocities.com/doug.basing...ea_bocelli.wma
Let me know if:
1. It plays ok
2. It downloads a licence then plays
3. It won't play
Please post your version of Windows and WMPlayer.
I might be able to collect enough info to work out what's happening myself.
Thanks in advance..

If you get a problem accessing the link I posted, please try one of these:

http://www.geocities.com/doug.basing/TEST

or

http://www.geocities.com/bvfmsec/downloads

and choose the Andrea Bocelli song.

Thanks again.
P.S. It's a freebie site and there are all sorts of limitations on capacity so if too many people try it the limits might be exceeded. If so please try later.

I'm still using wmp 9 and it will play that song. It connected to the net and got the licence.
The only thing I've seen that might help is

Close Windows Media Player if it is currently running.

The DRM folder on your PC is hidden by default. Please take the following
steps to make is visible:

1. Click "Start", then "Run".
2. Type "control folders" in the box and press Enter.
3. In the window that appears, select the "View" tab.
4. Select "Show hidden files and folders".
5. Un-select "Hide protected operating system files/folders". 6. Un-select
"Hide extensions for know file types".

Next, locate your DRM folder:

Under WinXP/2000 this folder should be located at C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/DRM

If you cannot find the DRM folder, please go through steps 1 to 6 above
carefully, ensuring that the correct options are set.

Once you have found the DRM folder, please rename it to "DRMBACKUP". If you now attempt to play your tracks Windows Media Player will perform a security upgrade, which resets all of the necessary DRM files. Each track should then request a new license when you first play it and will then play as normal and should be fine.

Hi Tassie,
Thanks for the response.
I tried it on my system and unfortunately it didn't work.
I've also tried to delete WMP11 as I have a copy of WMP9 which used to play the song.
However, version 9 will not install, it says there is a newer version and if I try to delete version 11, it will NOT delete.
If I go to add/remove programs it will only roll it back to version 10.
I've tried deleting v10 and even removed the registry entries but it still won't instal version 9, instead it re-installs v. 10 from somewhere??
I've never seen anything quite like it.
I might try deleting all the Windows backups then try again.
Otherwise it looks like a re-install of Windows, and I'm not even convinced that will fix it.
Also, I'm still completely baffled as to why it plays on one of my (dual boot) systems but not the other??