Sometimes things do 'Just Work'

and contrary to popular belief they aren't always Microsoft Products. I reinstalled XP on a desktop the other day (so I can do some cross-platform pyGTK programming). Its a plain-jayne Celeron 2.9GHz machine that I picked up on sale at Tiger Direct a few months back. Wouldn't you know it, XP hasn't got a clue as to how to install the Audio drivers. After digging about for a considerable amount of time I finally came up with the motherboard CD and got that working.

Then I tried DVD playback, I wanted to watch Firefly while cleaning my guns. I had bought a $15 license for a Sonic DVD codec when I bought WinXP online. I downloaded the package from Sonic (I had printed out the instructions so I knew it was right!). The darn thing didn't work! Windows Media Player still says it ain't got a clue as to how to play the DVD.

Under Linux I use Xine to play DVDs, but it hasn't been ported to Windows. But Mplayer has. Ironically I can never get mplayer to work properly under Linux. On Windows it was a different stopry entierly. I downloaded the Windows pre-compiled binary and a full load of codecs. Unzip the binary to c:\ and the codecs into the c:\mplayer\codecs directory. Then run mplayer dvd:// from a command window and off you go!

Now I have a clean gun and Windows XP that can play DVD's without having to bother with those damn closed apps that won't even work with your legal license. So how do I get my $15 back from Sonic?