I have a 2-year old Dell Inspiron 5000 and I recently upgraded my OS from Windows 98 to Win XP Professional. I have a DVD-rom drive, and before I changed my OS, I could watch DVDs with no problem. But now I am a little disappointed because I can no longer watch DVD's on my computer. My friend says that because Dell no longer makes Inspiron 5000's, they haven't released any DVD player decoders for people who changed their OS from the standard Win 98. I read that XP's Windows Media Player can play DVD's, but you have to get codecs or decoders or something like that. I don't understand what exactly I need to do and where I can get this stuff from. And what is the stuff that I see on sale online, like PowerDVD and Intervideo WinDVD? If I just bought that software and installed it on my computer, would I then be able to watch DVD's? I'd really appreciate any help or advice from anyone. Thanks.

Yes, you need to purchase WinDvd or POwerDvd and then things should be ok. You can download a demo of WinDvd to test that out. The demo will allow you to watch for about 5 minutes.

Hi I think that i can help you. First, you have to find drivers for your DVD drive. For that you can go to www.touslesdrivers.com . After that, if your problem isn't ok, you must search for codec. The best codecs that i know are DIVX Mpeg4 the last version and Angel potion. Whith both, you can watch all movies you want. For finding Divx Mpeg4, you can search on Kazaa.I wish that it'll help you.