Patrick 12/03/2025

Blu-ray Player

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Windows Media Player is a built-in media player for users to listen to and watch multimedia content on Windows PCs. It is full-featured and serves as a DVD player software to play DVDs. However, some users often come across obstacles when they play DVD on Windows Media Player. It is definitely not an enjoyable experience. In this case, it is necessary to figure out the reason why you won’t play DVD with Windows Media Player and fix the problem. Moreover, here come the effective instructions on how to play a DVD on Windows Player with easy steps and offer its best alternative.

Part 1: Easy Steps to Play DVD with Windows Media Player

As Windows Media Player is built in your computer running Windows, no additional installation is required. Playing DVD on Windows Media Player is quite easy especially when you are using Windows 7. Typically, your DVD will automatically start playing on Windows Media Player after it is inserted into the DVD drive. If it doesn’t, you can follow the steps below.

How to Play DVD with Windows Media Player manually on Windows 7

Step 1. Open Windows Media Player.

Step 2. Move to the navigation panel of the Player Library, click your DVD name to display the title or chapters on the DVD.

Step 3. You can choose the title or chapter name you prefer and click the “play” button. The DVD should now play.

How to Play a DVD on Windows Media Player in Windows 8/10

It is necessary to mention that Windows Media Player does not natively support playing DVDs on Windows 8/10 like it used to in Windows 7 and all previous versions. If you are facing issues with the movie DVD playing with this built-in player, you will need a compatible DVD decoder. To put it simply, a DVD decoder is a media processing software that enables the reading of DVDs by Windows Media Player on Windows 8/10.

You can follow the below method to play DVD with Windows Media Player on Windows 8/10:

Step 1. Go to the “Start” menu, search for and open “Control Panel”.

Step 2. Select “Troubleshooting”. In the left panel, click “View All” to show all problems and then choose “Windows Media Player”.

Step 3. A dialogue will then pop up to ask you to install the Windows Media Player DVD decoder. You need to follow the directions to install it.

Step 4. After installation, insert the DVD you want to watch. Generally, the DVD should automatically start to play. If it doesn’t, open Windows Media Player and click the name of the DVD in the Player Library panel to manually play the title or chapter you’d like to watch.

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It is obviously easy to play DVD on Windows Media Player, but you may still face challenges when the player won’t play the DVD at all. There are several reasons why this problem happens. Just read on and find out how to fix it in efficient ways.

Reason 1: Some Windows versions don’t support playing DVD on Windows Media Player

As previously mentioned, Windows doesn’t include built-in support to play DVDs since Windows 8. If you are using Windows 8 or 10, you cannot directly play DVD on Windows Media Player anymore. With the rapid growth of streaming services and digital downloads, physical media formats like DVDs have seen a steady decline in popularity. Citing the declining relevance of physical media and cost-saving priorities, Microsoft phased out native DVD playback support in newer Windows versions. 

Solution 1: How to fix it and play DVD on Windows 8/10  

Though Microsoft discontinued integrated DVD playback capabilities in modern Windows editions since Windows 8, there are solutions offered if you still want to play a DVD.

For Windows 8 users, you have to purchase either of these two add-ons, Windows 8 Media Center Pack or the Windows 8 Pro Pack for DVD playback. They both allow you to play DVDs through Windows Media Center, an all-in-one multimedia app. The app has rich functionality including DVD player, recording, playing TV, etc. 

For Windows 10 users, purchasing and installing the official Windows DVD Player app from the Microsoft Store remains a straightforward solution for basic DVD playback, though it requires a one-time fee.

Reason 3: Your DVD format isn’t supported by Windows Media Player  

If you cannot play DVD on Windows Media Player, it may be caused by the format incompatibility. As you know, Windows Media Player supports multimedia file types like WMV, AVI, WMA, MP3 and more. If your DVD format is not supported by the player, your DVD may not play. To fix the issue, you can just use a third-party media player that supports the DVD format like Leawo Blu-ray Player, a free all-inclusive media player that supports Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray, UHD, DVD, audio and video formats.

Part 3: Windows Media Player Not Available on Windows 11? Try the Best Alternative Windows Media Player

Some users may have installed Windows 11 and found that the classic Windows Media Player is hidden by default. On the latest OS, Microsoft replaced Windows Media Player with the Media Player App for music and video playback. If you are asking “does Windows Media Player play DVDs on Windows 11, the answer is definitely no. Neither Windows Media Player nor the new Media Player app supports DVD playback in Windows 11. To play DVD smoothly in an enjoyable way, you need to discover the best player alternative—Leawo Blu-ray Player.

• Leawo Free Blu-ray Player

  – Deliver quality-lossless video images at 720p/1080p/1080i/4K in H.264/H.265, MP4, MKV, MOV, etc. formats.
  – Support various audio decoding technologies like Dolby, DTS, AAC, TrueHD, DTS-HD, etc.
  – Personalize settings like selecting subtitles and audio tracks freely.
  – Support fluent and smooth media decoding and playback.

  DownloadDownload

Leawo Blu-ray Player is a free and multifunctional media player software program, offering comprehensive solutions to play back Blu-ray, DVD, ISO files, video and audio files on Windows PC. The player is compatible with Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11, so you can watch your preferred DVD on your PC even with the latest OS. It offers superb viewing experience, and meanwhile, supports numerous media file types like common DVD formats such as DVD disc, ISO, etc., video formats such as MP4, AVI, MOV, etc., and audio in MP3, M4A, AAC, and more. It is straightforward to play a DVD with Leawo Blu-ray Player. After downloading and installing the program on your computer, you can just follow the user guide to play DVD on Windows.

Step 1. Add the source media file

Open Leawo Blu-ray Player and insert your DVD into the disc drive. Now you can go to “Play Disc” in the main interface of the program and select the DVD name to start playing.

Step 2. Change subtitle settings if necessary

After adding the DVD, Leawo Blu-ray Player would begin to play. You can right click on the screen and choose options for “Subtitles…” on the pop-up menu. The Subtitle settings allow you to enable or disable the functionality, adjust the Subtitle offset, select a Subtitle file if available, and browse for subtitle.

Step 3. Adjust video settings for personal viewing experience

You can also right click the screen and then click “Videos…” instead to open the Video Settings panel. There are multiple video setting options for you to adjust based on your preference.

Alternatively, you can also choose “Audios…” to configure audio settings during playback.

Taking all in all, Leawo Blu-ray Player is certainly worth trying to enjoy quality-lossless video images and wonderful movie watching experience.

Conclusion

As it is, not playing DVD on Windows Media Player is not a big deal. The post delivers several solutions that work and can be easy to achieve. You can simply figure out why Windows Media Player doesn’t play DVDs and how to play a DVD on Windows Media Player fast and free. It is noticeable that Windows Media Player is phased out by Microsoft to align with industry shifts toward digital media and reduce licensing costs. The workaround for you to play DVD with Windows Media Player is to make full use of the best alternative tool like Leawo Blu-ray Player. It can serve as a completely free and multi-functional DVD player to improve your viewing experience while playing your DVD.