Windows Media Player 10 + Using Random Ports to

[Canuck]

Hook you up with a herd of really choice Servers...
Even with all the privacy options enabled in Media Player 10, using third party tools I've found that Media Player calls up over a dozen servers and hooks me up with Walmart, Napster, and several other Super-Media companies I care NOT to share my information with.
Yet they do it anyways... I think this is unethecial.

I've also noticed ports left open using netstat commands so check for foreign IP addys.
I don't want that either.

I'm putting all those IP's in my block list.
Thank you peer gaurdian.

No wonder I was getting stuttering on my wireless P3 550 BX based media server. Went to an old version of Media Player, google Media Player Classic and Ahh no more stuttering while streaming MY DVD Files over the wireless network... my bandwidth is mine again.

What a guy has to do to watch his own DVD's.

[Nosferatu]

What a guy has to do to watch his own DVD's.

Its called Media Player Classic.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

And yes it does play DVDs just fine.

[Canuck]

Skimmer of teh month, and if this double posts again dont hate the player, hate the game.

[CDN_Merlin]

VLC Media Player

[Dakatsu]

I heard that is the reason they released this in the EU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP ... _Edition_N

Windows XP: Edition N

[DCrazy]

The reason they released Edition N in the EU is because the EU trade governing body determined that it was anti-competetive to bundle WMP with Windows.

[Admiral LSD]

...which is kind of bull★■◆● when you think about it. Sure, it's fun to dump on Microsoft because let's face it, they deserve it a lot of the time but really all they're doing is bundling one of their own products with another of their products. They're taking advantage of the fact that most people, upon finding a reasonably capable player in the OS, aren't going to bother using or even looking for anything else. Unethical maybe, but hardly anti-competitive. Anti-competitive would be if the actually prevented the end user from installing something else, which isn't the case at all.

[DCrazy]

My thoughts exactly, but it seems that the EU's M.O. is to punish Microsoft rather than rectify the situation. It also might have something to do with the fact that Microsoft is based in the U.S... a little bit of digipenis envy, if you will.