7 Home Basic and DVD Movies in Media Player

A client of mine recently purchased a HP Compaq 615 laptop, with Windows 7 Home Basic pre installed. The computer was supplied with 3 recovery discs, and in an effort to recover the 15GB used by the onboard recovery partition (and space wasted by bloatware), he used the recovery discs to clear all partitions and to re-install the base operating system and drivers.

He then proceeded to install Nero and PowerDVD (I'm not sure which versions).
Now, when he inserts a movie DVD, he gets the Autoplay choice of either using "Nero ShowTime" or "PowerDVD" to play the movie. Media Player is not presented in the choice!

To try and resolve the problem, I did this:

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click "Programs"
3. Click "Default Programs"
4. Click "Change Autoplay Settings"
5. For a "DVD Movie", the usual options are present ("Open Folder", "Take No Action", "Ask Me Everytime"), as are the settings to use either Nero or PowerDVD. But again, Media Player is not in the list of choices in the autoplay settings.

Does anyone know of a way to add Media Player to the list of Autoplay settings for a DVD Movie for Windows 7 Home Basic? I've checked the tutorials section already, but I think I've missed it, if the instructions are already there...

FliGi7 said:

Have you tried the "Choose program" option and selecting WMP? That should add it to the list of program options for opening it from now on.

I do not get the option to "Choose Program". Stuill only Nero Showtime and PowerDVD, with the option to "Alwasy do this for DVD Movies"

SIW2 said:

Hi Peter,

Try Autoplay Repair - seems to work fine on 7 - you can add app. to the list with that. Try Vista and Run as admin under the compatibility tab.

The cleanup function is a bit ropey - so don't try that bit.

OrangeBlue / Downloads

I'll still try this, if all other courses of action do not work.

derekimo said:

How about this tutorial,Default Programs - Associate a File Type or Protocol, #4 or #5 looks like what may help you.

Thanks, but I've already saw that. That tutorial is for opening unknown file types, or for changing the program used for known file types.



What I also should have mentioned earlier (sorry, my bad), is that if I manually open Windows Media Player first and then insert a DVD Movie, then it plays properly. Although this only worked AFTER PowerDVD was installed (otherwise WMP gave the classic XP message of no DVD Codec being installed).

If a DVD Movies is already in the drive, and WMP is opened, I can right-click the drive icon in WMP and select Play.