Foolestroupe -

The default DVD player in WinXP is "Windows Media Player." If the version you have doesn't play them, you may be able to download an update.

"Real Player" is on the popup when I put a DVD in, but I haven't tried it to see if it actually will play DVD movies. It probably depends on what version you've got.

If you right click on your DVD drive in Win Explorer, and click Properties, there should be an "Autoplay" tab. If you select "Always ask me" it will let you try out whatever programs you can find that might work without having to go through the filetype assignment routine each time. You can do the assignment later when you decide what you want to use, if you want them to actually autoplay.

Most add-on DVD players/burners come with a program CD, and they seldom tell you up front what's on it. You may, or may not, have something there you could use.

I usually watch movies with a program called NVDVD that came with my machine, since it lets me "snatch" individual frame pictures off the playback if I take a notion to. I seldom do since the pictures are "TV resolution," but it gives me immense satisfaction to know I could if I wanted to. It comes with a lot of "graphics cards" and if your machine came with more than a minimal card, or if you've replaced your card recently, you may have a "monitor disk" with it or something similar on it. Quite a few other (NVIDIA/geForce clones) graphics cards use NVIDIA specification parts, and sometimes bundle it.

If you got a DVD burner, you may have gotten a DVD version of Nero or EZ-CD (Roxio). My DVD-Nero "front panel" offers to "play a DVD" although Roxio doesn't have that option up front. I think there's a Roxio "player" buried somewhere that installed when I loaded the burner program, but I haven't looked for it.

John