DVD Issues

I'm having some trouble playing DVDs on my computer. It's a Dell XPS 200 and it has Microsoft XP Media Center Edition 2005 on it, or at least it used to have the media center edition stuff on it. A couple months ago my computer was having a hardware problem so I brought it into geek squad and they found the hardware problem and fixed it, but before that I guess they wiped my computer and all my media center stuff is gone. I don't really mind that, but I guess it also took away my DVD decoder. Every time I put in a DVD it asks me if I want to play it with Real Player or Media Player. When I select media player it tells me I don't have the DVD decoder for it. When I select real player it says that it's trying to download the software for it but then it says that my computer doesn't have the capability to play DVDs or something like that and it won't play them. My computer also won't play video files that have been saved on there previously or from my video camera. I went to your frequently asked questions and tried to follow what it said there, but the link was broken and the it wouldn't let me edit the values.

Can anyone help me please?

 

When you go into device manager is there a yellow mark or any type of mark on that page indicating a hardware issue?
If so can you download the driver to that device from their.

If it will not go to the download area here is a link to dell hardware /software page for the drivers to the cd/dvd for that model. Read through the list of cd/dvd and find yours apparently that system had many choices for these drives
XPS/Dimension 200 CD/DVD Driver page

 

"Every time I put in a DVD it asks me if I want to play it with Real Player or Media Player. When I select media player it tells me I don't have the DVD decoder for it."

I believe what is needed is a decoder such as DivX. That would be why RealPlayer doesn't have the software.
You can download the software you need here:

http://www.divx.com/en/products/software/windows/divx

 

MG Codec 8.3f

You can go to this link to download a codec. Just in case your drivers are their and there are no conflicts. The Mekanic made a good point it may just need decoding software

 

Good idea. Simple codecs, the "no frills" version...