Dell laptop DVD driver/decoder

[Charlie98]

I recently replaced the HDD in my laptop and installed a clean version of XP, installed all the drivers and updated everything... or so I thought.

Using Windows Media Player (which is all I have installed now) I can't play any DVD's... getting the '...a compatable DVD decoder is not installed on your computer...' error message.

I still have some drivers and downloads left but at this point I don't recognize any of them, and up until this point, everything is working better than fine... one of the goals I had by not installing all the bloatware my Dell originally came with.

Does anyone familiar with Dell laptops and particularly their installed software packages know what driver or utility I should be looking for? Or what a better software solution would be (preferably freeware) if there would be one.

I know this is sort of a vague request... but when it comes to software and systems, I'm not very handy.

 

[Lanyap]

Dell normally installs it's special version of PowerDVD software. They used to provide a backup install disk at one time but not anymore. Some Dell models have a option where you can log into a special Dell site and it will let you download. All that said, just download and install free VLC DVD player software and you should be good to go.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/