Upgrade to Vista from Media Centre (minefield)

Bluefoam

I bought a Media Centre laptop about 3 weeks ago & Media Centre won't play DVD's no matter what fixes I have attempted. I have been able to watch my DVD's through Nero, but that's not why I spent my money on a MC machine.

I decided to upgrade to Vista, thinking that this should sort out my problems, however the upgrade website says I need the following:

have your Certificate of Authenticity (COA) number (14 digits) readily available. (no idea what this is or where to find it)
-Please provide your Computer vendors Windows Vista Capable PC Model and Model number
-Please have your PC serial number readily available

I have also been informed that in order to complete the process I will need to post the following to Microsoft:
- A redemption form (never heard of this & don't know where to get it)
- A proof of purchase (I am very lucky I kept the pro forma invoice, I bought on-line so have no other proof of purchase)

The Microsoft site will only recognise the American model numbers for my particular PC, so I used the portal on the Sony site.

In spite of this I began the upgrade process & where it asks me to choose my existing operating system , it gives a blank box & I cannot get any further with the process.

There is no information with the laptop regarding the current OS or any upgrade, do you think Microsoft are trying to make it exceedingly difficult for people to upgrade for free in the hope that they will buy a licence or new PC at a later date?

Anyone experienced similar trouble?

astrofool

Vista isn't released via retail until Jan 30th, are you trying to redeem an upgrade coupon? (in which case you'll have to wait till it's released)

Bluefoam

astrofool wrote:

Vista isn't released via retail until Jan 30th, are you trying to redeem an upgrade coupon? (in which case you'll have to wait till it's released)

You can claim your upgrade now, I think it is sent out at the release date...

tman

sounds like a codec issue tbh, you might as well just try installing k-lite codec pack or something like that...
upgrading to Vista just to play dvds seems a little extreme

Bluefoam

tman wrote:

sounds like a codec issue tbh, you might as well just try installing k-lite codec pack or something like that...
upgrading to Vista just to play dvds seems a little extreme

Installed k-lite a couple of weeks back...

8T8

Uninstall the K-Lite codec pack it causes more trouble then it is worth by installing redundant and duplicate codecs that conflict with other codecs in the system.

In order for DVD's to be playable in MCE you need an MCE compliant DVD decoder. To check whether your Nero decoder is compliant download the deccheck utility, install and run & it will tell you if it is MCE compliant if so click the box to set it as your preferred decoder.

{FYI the Nero decoder isn't compliant last time I checked}

Compliant decoders are:
NVIDIA Purevideo
ATI AVIVO {Free with an X1K series GPU}
Cyberlink PowerDVD
Intervideo WinDVD

Once the K-Lite package is gone from the system install one of the above to get DVD playback in MCE. For other media playback install ffdshow & Haali Media Splitter & AC3 Filter and you can handle pretty much everything.

As for the Vista upgrade it only works as far as I know if you go through the PC makers website for instance Dell only recently enabled Euro customers to purchase the upgrade but it will not be posted to them until February.

I would imagine Sony's site is not yet up to gear for the upgrade process which is why it didn't work your best bet is to fire off an email and ask Sony when will it be operational or as to why it isn't working for you now.

Bluefoam

8T8 wrote:

Uninstall the K-Lite codec pack it causes more trouble then it is worth by installing redundant and duplicate codecs that conflict with other codecs in the system.

In order for DVD's to be playable in MCE you need an MCE compliant DVD decoder. To check whether your Nero decoder is compliant download the deccheck utility, install and run & it will tell you if it is MCE compliant if so click the box to set it as your preferred decoder.

{FYI the Nero decoder isn't compliant last time I checked}

Compliant decoders are:
NVIDIA Purevideo
ATI AVIVO {Free with an X1K series GPU}
Cyberlink PowerDVD
Intervideo WinDVD

Once the K-Lite package is gone from the system install one of the above to get DVD playback in MCE. For other media playback install ffdshow & Haali Media Splitter & AC3 Filter and you can handle pretty much everything.

As for the Vista upgrade it only works as far as I know if you go through the PC makers website for instance Dell only recently enabled Euro customers to purchase the upgrade but it will not be posted to them until February.

I would imagine Sony's site is not yet up to gear for the upgrade process which is why it didn't work your best bet is to fire off an email and ask Sony when will it be operational or as to why it isn't working for you now.

Thanks for the advice, k-lite is uninstalled, I had 3 Nero Decoders & one was compatible with Media Centre. All is working well so far.

Will get on to Sony about Vista.

kaizersoze

Bluefoam wrote:

I decided to upgrade to Vista, thinking that this should sort out my problems, however the upgrade website says I need the following:

have your Certificate of Authenticity (COA) number (14 digits) readily available. (no idea what this is or where to find it)
-Please provide your Computer vendors Windows Vista Capable PC Model and Model number
-Please have your PC serial number readily available

The CAO (Certificate of Authenticity) is the Microsoft sticker on the underside of the laptops similar to this:

The COA serial number you'll need when redeeming your upgrade is the 14 digit number similar to the one in the picture just under the barcode starting with 00000.

Bluefoam

kaizersoze wrote:

The CAO (Certificate of Authenticity) is the Microsoft sticker on the underside of the laptops similar to this:

The COA serial number you'll need when redeeming your upgrade is the 14 digit number similar to the one in the picture just under the barcode starting with 00000.

Thanks, thought that might be it, am still worried about the redemption form... don't have it.

ressem

Redemption form at
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/techguarantee/worldwide.mspx

pickarooney

Isn't Vista designed to make it even more difficult to play audiovisual media?

8T8

pickarooney wrote:

Isn't Vista designed to make it even more difficult to play audiovisual media?

Um no...

It behaves the exact same way as XP does in fact it's better as lots of the nasty bugs in the audio & video rendering engine of XP have been done away with.

Capt'n Midnight

pickarooney wrote:

Isn't Vista designed to make it even more difficult to play audiovisual media?

yes,
have they sorted out the Zune yet ?
they were supposed to have released a patch just before christmas, but I can't confirm that (of course the zune isn't microsoft playsforsure compatible for marketing reasons :rolleyes: )

How about playsforsure ? is it vista compatible ? (it should be because of media player)

as long as VLC and real alternative and co. can run shouldn't be a problem

but seriously it does have a lot more DRM under the bonnet, but that should not affect non-DRM formats.

ethernet

pickarooney wrote:

Isn't Vista designed to make it even more difficult to play audiovisual media?

Bad Vista certainly want consumers to think so.

8T8

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

yes,
have they sorted out the Zune yet ?

Yes a firmware update was released last week but that has nothing to do with media playback in Vista.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

how about playsforsure ? is it vista compatible ? (it should be because of media player)

Vista comes with WMP11 so yes it is compatible.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

as long as VLC and real alternative and co. can run shouldn't be a problem

No reason they shouldn't work.

* Vista behaves the same as XP it doesn't go roving trying to apply DRM to the files on your system that's just stupid & Microsoft isn't that dumb.
* Files that have DRM on them in the first place are treated in the same manner as XP.
* Files that don't have DRM on them are treated in the same manner as XP you can do whatever the hell you want with them.
* Vista uses the same plugin directshow architecture for video codecs that XP does.
* Vista uses an enhanced version of DXVA that can offload decoding to VC-1, H.264 & more to the GPU in a standardised manner that DXVA 1.x cannot under XP.
* Vista's audio engine has been re-written from scratch to support a wide range of audio profiles and setups with also independent/application volume settings.
* The protected display path is the same protected display path that HD-DVD or Blu-ray uses in XP with Cyberlink or Intervideos players & is only used by those formats.

Bad Vista certainly want consumers to think so.

Hardly an impartial place for reliable information, FUD central :rolleyes: