DVD player won't play DVDs

I recently helped a friend get his laptop (Gateway 3560) running again. I had to load a new copy of XP Pro on it, which apparently wiped out a bunch of drivers. I went to the Gateway support site and got modem, network, and audio drivers and those things all work again. The computer has a DVD +/- RW Multi-format double layer player but it won't play DVDs. Sometimes they'll come up and tell me that the computer doesn't have the codes, sometimes it just grinds away and never comes up. Any thoughts?
Keith

 

by codes do you mean 'codecs' ?

have a look here

http://www.majorgeeks.com/K-Lite_Codec_Pack_Full_d4844.html

 

Well, the error message could mean codecs, but that's not what it says. It says codes. I'll check it out though.
Keith

 

Usually, you'll get a message from Windows Media Player that a DVD decoder is not installed. This is the same as a codec and you can use the link posted above by hawklord to get the KLite Full Codec Pack, or you can install an alternative media player. VLC Media Player is a very popular free player that can play just about any video or audio file without needing any codec packs, this includes DVD movies, audio CDs, downloaded videos and music, etc.
:-D