Practical

Apr 30, 2008 18:48

1) Is anyone going to a midnight showing of Ironman tomorrow night? I can go with my young roommate, but I feel like I haven't seen you guys in months, what with working every Saturday night ( Read more... )

netflix, windows, movies

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elektrizitat May 1 2008, 01:11:50 UTC
Now I may be wrong, but I think you should be able to download the needed windows media player updates through Microsoft Autoupdate to play streaming movies via Netflix. Do you run "Windows Update" or "Microsoft Update" to install the updates for the operating system? NOTE: I'm running Windows XP with the latest media player updates and it works surprisingly well.

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redheadedlawyer May 1 2008, 03:51:48 UTC
Yes, yes I do! But Microsoft Update is telling me there is nothing new for me for me to download!

There are no high priority updates available for your computer.

I've downloaded all the optional updates.

I've used Windows Media Player before, and never had a problem with it until I tried to use Netflix. It's telling me I need to update to WMP 11. :-(

I've gone through all the Microsoft Rollup Downloads, versions 1.1 through 3 point something.

Everytime I try to download the Windows Media Player update or Windows Media Player 11 - which I'm directed to directly from Netflix - comes back AFTER validation to say -

Unsupported Operating System. To install Windows Media Player 11, your computer must be running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 or later.

This really shouldn't be so complicated. I'm not technically incompetent!

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psych0tron May 1 2008, 03:53:34 UTC
do you have service pack 2 installed for XP? while i don't believe that it actually requires the media center edition of windows, it very well may require the latest service pack for xp.

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redheadedlawyer May 1 2008, 07:06:40 UTC
Your computer has already been upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). For tips or help using it, see the SP2 support and how-tos.

Sigh.

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elektrizitat May 1 2008, 06:49:40 UTC
Are you able to download and install it directly?:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/11/default.aspx

Oops. I didn't read your response closely - no you can't. Well damn! It sounds like a reinstall either of Windows XP or an upgrade to Windows Media Center 2005 or Vista might be the way to go. What a pain!

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redheadedlawyer May 1 2008, 07:03:37 UTC
But truly, wouldn't you think that a 2006 computer should be reasonably expected to have 2005? Shouldn't Best Buy or HP give me that upgrade without charge? If not - be honest. I don't want to waste my time or sound like an idiot!

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elektrizitat May 1 2008, 13:04:17 UTC
Well, I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, sure - it's completely reasonable that you could expect the computer to have Windows Media Center 2005 (or even plain vanilla Windows XP) or later on it.

On the other hand you knew what you were getting when you purchased it - that might have been why it was at a particular price point or discount. However, there's no harm in asking them "What's up?"

I'm just flabbergasted that Media Center 2002 (which in my understanding is a superset of XP) doesn't have the ability to install Windows Media Player 11 on it. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/11/readme.aspx#AddingorremovingthePlayer

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redheadedlawyer May 1 2008, 23:24:01 UTC
Well - that teach me to check these things more carefully. I just assumed at the time that 2002 was the latest version out - if I checked it at all.

And yeah - they WANT you to use windows media player 11, right? So why wouldn't they make it easy? It's not like I don't have a licensed version of windows!

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