How do you stop Windows Media Player 11 from checking and disabling music tracks that it deems illegal?

I ask because I have a friend that recently bought a new Vista OS Laptop and after transferring all her music she no longer is able to play her fav sounds!? Even though they where bought legally from a music disk...

Is there a solution to my problem?

Many thanks

S!ap

PS from what I have read up on, Windows media Player 11 is part of the OS in Vista and cannot be removed or tampered with.

I guess your friend did 'rip' the songs from the disk?
Not just copied from the CD?

I haven't ever had any problems with it, as long as I rip the songs, rather than simply trying to copy them from a CD. When trying to copy them, it will sometimes not work.

EDIT:
When I try to copy them, it will only be a 1kb .cda file. The song isn't really there. Rip them from the CD to mp3 works well though.

rgr will check, thanks TF.

I burn my downloaded songs to a CD for back up. If you then rip the songs from the CD then the copy protection is gone.

I believe that there is also an option on WMP to encrypt any song that you rip from a CD. I make sure it is not selected.

VLC media player. Forget WMP. If you burn them to a disk, and rip them, the quality will be pretty poor since they are already ripped once.

I am pretty sure this will get you to where you need to go. This will only work if Windows is indeed disabling the music only after being unable to find appropriate licenses on the internet.

Option 1) Start/Run/"gpedit.msc"/Press enter.

Navigate to: Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM, dun dun dun...)/Set "Prevent Windows Media DRM Internet Access" to Enabled.

Option 2) Firewall WMP, so that it can't do anything. I still wonder if it might try to access the internet through another process that you'll never suspect has anything to do with WMP (like svchost.exe)

Just as an aside, I buy a lot of music online and a lot of DVDs from multiple regions. When DRM starts telling me I cant play my legally purchased stuff on this or that for some stupid reason I don't even understand, I get angry...and I almost always end up being able to use it the way I want. Ahem, that's all from me.

Thanks all!

Tried VLC media and although it now shows all the info on the artist etc it doesn't seem to allow the sound to work (the music tracks that Vista has deemed non-licensed)?

Phoenix many thanks! Will defo try that. Dam annoying for sure this whole WMP being part of Vista OS crap...Very sly of Microsoft because I would have though this illegal in itself if it where not for the fact that they put it this way (Part of the OS, sorry you cant remove it...).

Ok rant over with