Blu-Ray Internal and External Drives No Longer Play DVDs

Winuser · Dec 11, 2022

wordsworth said:
he reason I suggest this is because of an old thread here. Scroll down near the bottom of the thread and you'll find the OP solved his problem (concerned with a decoder blocking play of DVDs because of copy protection) by simply deleting some registry keys for a couple of decoder entries.

DVD playback requires a paid license. The license is included with the DVD software. MS use to include a DVD player with Windows. They no longer offer the player. I think you're correct about the playback being blocked. Using Revo to completley uninstall all DVD software and their settings will be much easy than doing a clean install. If all fails and there is no image of the OS when the DVD playback worked, then do the clean install.

HDL · Dec 11, 2022

Winuser said:
DVD playback requires a paid license. The license is included with the DVD software. MS use to include a DVD player with Windows. They no longer offer the player. I think you're correct about the playback being blocked. Using Revo to completley uninstall all DVD software and their settings will be much easy than doing a clean install. If all fails and there is no image of the OS when the DVD playback worked, then do the clean install.

No, I have no image of it when it worked. However, unless a license was included in the free version of Leawo Blu-Ray Player, I never had to purchase one for it to work. I have used it for about 3 years now with no problem until this happened.

Winuser · Dec 11, 2022

HDL said:
No, I have no image of it when it worked. However, unless a license was included in the free version of Leawo Blu-Ray Player, I never had to purchase one for it to work. I have used it for about 3 years now with no problem until this happened.

The DVD software has the license. I use Leawoo Blue-Ray software and Power DVD. Here is a link to a video forum I belong to. They may be able to help. https://forum.videohelp.com/ When the page loads, click on Forums at the top of the page.

Winuser · Dec 11, 2022

Here's a more direct link the the section that you can search on or you can join and ask for help. Software Playing - VideoHelp Forum

spapakons · Dec 12, 2022

If you got the software with the drive you have already paid for the license. The key is usually printed on the CD-ROM label or on the sleeve.

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

Winuser said:
Here's a more direct link the the section that you can search on or you can join and ask for help. Software Playing - VideoHelp Forum

Thank you. I will check it out.

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

spapakons said:
If you got the software with the drive you have already paid for the license. The key is usually printed on the CD-ROM label or on the sleeve.

I must have gotten all I need then because nothing has ever refused to play until I ran into this problem. Thank you for the information.

Winuser · Dec 12, 2022

HDL said:
I must have gotten all I need then because nothing has ever refused to play until I ran into this problem. Thank you for the information.

You would only be given a key if the program needed to be activated. PowerDVD is an example of a DVD program that needs to be activated. Leawo Blu-Ray player as I recall is a Freeware/Trialware. The DVD player is free and you have to buy a license if you want to watch Blu-ray disk after the trial period.
Edit: I just posted a question about your problem on the Videohelp forum. No DVD or Blu-ray playback

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

Winuser said:
Here's a more direct link the the section that you can search on or you can join and ask for help. Software Playing - VideoHelp Forum

Thank you and wanted to let you know that I did join and posted much the same post as I did here to get started.

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

Winuser said:
You would only be given a key if the program needed to be activated. PowerDVD is an example of a DVD program that needs to be activated. Leawo Blu-Ray player as I recall is a Freeware/Trialware. The DVD player is free and you have to buy a license if you want to watch Blu-ray disk after the trial period.

I'm not sure what I have then because I have been using the free version for over 3 years now, on multiple machines, and was never asked to purchase anything unless I wanted to upgrade to the paid version.

Winuser · Dec 12, 2022

HDL said:
I'm not sure what I have then because I have been using the free version for over 3 years now, on multiple machines, and was never asked to purchase anything unless I wanted to upgrade to the paid version.

It's been awhile sense I used the Leawo player. I'll have to check and see what the difference between the free player and the paid player.

Winuser · Dec 12, 2022

I went to the Leawo web site and the premium version offers a lossless Blu-ray/DVD to MKV converter. Blu-ray/DVD playback is free.

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

Winuser said:
I went to the Leawo web site and the premium version offers a lossless Blu-ray/DVD to MKV converter. Blu-ray/DVD playback is free.

Thank you for that information. I'm not sure what MKV converter means but I won't need it.

Winuser · Dec 12, 2022

HDL said:
Thank you and wanted to let you know that I did join and posted much the same post as I did here to get started.

HDL said:
Thank you for that information. I'm not sure what MKV converter means but I won't need it.

You're playing the content straight from the disk so it's nothing you need.

Winuser · Dec 12, 2022

We both started threads about your problem. I hope they can help you find a solution.

GUMBY · Dec 12, 2022

Try this..... It's been a long time since I have had this issue but this worked in the past.

The CD drive or the DVD drive does not work as expected on a computer that is running Windows Vista - Microsoft Support

Describes a problem that may occur if the filter drivers in the CD and the DVD storage stack are not migrated successfully to Windows Vista.

support.microsoft.com

spapakons · Dec 12, 2022

You said at least one of your drives is USB. Have you tried it on another computer? This is to confirm your drives are OK and it is a software issue. In that case backup all your data and clean install Windows 11.

spapakons · Dec 12, 2022

GUMBY said:
Try this..... It's been a long time since I have had this issue but this worked in the past.

The CD drive or the DVD drive does not work as expected on a computer that is running Windows Vista - Microsoft Support

Describes a problem that may occur if the filter drivers in the CD and the DVD storage stack are not migrated successfully to Windows Vista.

support.microsoft.com

This is about removing faulty upper or lower filters, as I mentioned in my previous post. Try that first and if it doesn't work backup your data and clean install Windows 11.

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

Winuser said:
We both started threads about your problem. I hope they can help you find a solution.

Thank you. I haven't heard anything yet but hopefully will.

HDL · Dec 12, 2022

spapakons said:
This is about removing faulty upper or lower filters, as I mentioned in my previous post. Try that first and if it doesn't work backup your data and clean install Windows 11.

OK, this seems to be above my pay grade.

I did find many registry keys with that value but none of them had the Default value set to DVD/CD-ROM and Class value set to CDROM. The closest I could find and the only one I found with UpperFilters and LowerFilters values are pointed out in the attachment. Not sure if I delete them like your link says to do or not. Please see attachment. What do you think?