Can i use an OEM disc to reinstall windows programs?

[Guest]

my laptop has win 7 64 bit installed, i used a dell oem disc that can be used on any computer, when it installed it all worked fine, after a few months though my windows media player started playing up, now i cant get it to play any music at all as it totally crashes my laptop everytime. if i click on any music file, windows media player opens but i get a white screen with just the media player border and it stays like that, i then click close and reopen it again, it plays the song but then my laptop just seems to crash - but the song keeps playing????

i have scanned my reg and theres no problems, i have scanned for viruses and spyware but again nothing was found, i use avg.

i still have the oem dvd i used to install windows, i know you cant use the disc to reinstall windows, but can i use it to reinstall or download and reinstall windows media player??

i cant download it from microsoft.com because all it says is "included with your vista setup" it doesnt give you any download links to it, if i download media player from a secondary site, when i start the install i get the stupid message "the version of media player your trying to install is older than the one you already have. installation will be aborted"

i know its VERY typical of microsoft to NOT help or offer any help, but im getting really sick of this now.

my laptop spec is good enough, dual core cpu, 3gb ram etc so its not my hardware and i have no viruses, its the main program files that are corrupt in some way.

any help on how to fix it?

[Mike Stranks]

Welcome!

Is it only Media Player that's causing problems? Everything else still running OK?

Media Player is notoriously flaky and temperamental if not handled with kid gloves... a lot of us now use VLC... Suggest you download it and see how you get on...

https://vlc-media-player.en.softonic.com/

[The Elf]

Yep, just use VLC.

[Sam Spoons]

My experience of Windows ended with Win7 (and really XP/Vista WRT in depth knowledge) but You should be able to repair W7/media player from your OEM disk and certainly do a clean install. I can't see why you can't reinstall from the same disk as you did the original install from (but the ways of Microsoft are legion and beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortal computer fettlers )

[garrettendi]

+1 for VLC. It's great on Linux, not so good on Windows, but still better than Media Player.

(DVD playback on Windows can give poor video, but sound files should work fine)

[James Perrett]

I'm another VLC user - it has worked fine on every machine I've tried it on.

I also used to use Media Player Classic but that was a while ago.

[garrettendi]

I also used to use Media Player Classic but that was a while ago.

I've heard rumours that MP Classic has had adware/malware in it. Have they cleared it up?

[John Willett]

Yep, just use VLC.

Same here - VLC

[Agharta]

I’d ask to get this moved to the Windows forum.

It’s unusual for WMP to act like that so it’s possible you have a hardware fault.
I would run a check to see if your hard drive is corrupt for starters.
If everything else works fine and you really want to use WMP then unless you have a system backup that you can restore you may well need to reinstall Windows from scratch.
If the Windows 7 disk you have came with the laptop then it should be fine to use to reinstall Windows.
If not then you may have a problem especially if the manufacturer of the disc isn’t the same as your laptop.
Even if it the same manufacture it still may not work due to the way OEM licenses activate.
I forget the exact ins and outs of Win7 now but you are better off than if you had 8 or 10.

The first thing I’d do is to download a utility like ProduKey which will capture the Product Key of your current Windows installation.
You can save the info to disk and print it out in case you need in when reinstalling.
As well as that your laptop should have a Windows license sticker which will also have a product key which will different to the one you just captured with ProduKey.
Confusing really but the one on the sticker is really for emergencies in case you need to do a reinstall and you lack the original install DVD and haven’t written down the key that was preinstalled on the system.
In that situation you could use pretty much any retail or OEM install DVD, provided it’s the correct edition of Windows, and use the product key from the sticker when prompted.
But keep that key for emergencies as it is in effect a new unused Product Key that can even be used on a brand new system that you built yourself. Although that is outside of the scope of its licensing terms so I am not endorsing that.
So these are the 3 main scenarios for an install in order of preference:

1. Use an OEM disc that is linked to your system which means there is no prompt for a product key and activation is automated.
2. Use another type of disc be it retail or OEM from other manufacturer and manually enter the Product Key that you captured using ProduKey when necessary. That is either during installation or during activation if it prompts you.
3. If the Product Key in 2) doesn’t activate then use the one from the license sticker.

You may be able to download the latest ISO of Windows 7 direct from MS which will be quicker as it has the latest Service Pack and updates.
You can create a bootable DVD or USB stick (4 or 8GB) from the ISO with USB being quicker especially if you have a fast stick.

[James Perrett]

You may be able to download the latest ISO of Windows 7 direct from MS which will be quicker as it has the latest Service Pack and updates.

You could certainly download an ISO of Windows 7 when I last looked a few months ago.

[OneWorld]

I've had problems with Windows Media Player such as this, and with the widget that lets me connect and transfer files to and from my PC

In the case of MP it could well be the codec has got lost/banjaxed but you get this situation where we trying to install MB, it says a later is already installed, I sort of guess the inf files are there but the drivers/codecs/whatever are not

There is a free app online that installs almost all codecs - thing is I can't remember what it's called

[CS70]

my laptop has win 7 64 bit installed, i used a dell oem disc that can be used on any computer, when it installed it all worked fine, after a few months though my windows media player started playing up

Technically, yes. Legally, no. Your WMP problems have nothing to do with the OEM - most probably it's disk corruption or hardware/RAM problems or so.

[Martin Walker]

I’d ask to get this moved to the Windows forum.

No sooner said than done

Martin

[Pete Kaine]

my laptop has win 7 64 bit installed, i used a dell oem disc that can be used on any computer, when it installed it all worked fine, after a few months though my windows media player started playing up

Technically, yes. Legally, no. Your WMP problems have nothing to do with the OEM - most probably it's disk corruption or hardware/RAM problems or so.

Surprisingly legally, yes. Its the key you pay for, not the ISO itself.

Though if you need a clean ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... d/windows7

Agree with the rest though, if it's corrupted then I'd be checking the RAM and drive to make sure they ain't on the way out.

Although if it comes back clean, then I've also (rarely) seen WMP just die on a system, even fairly new ones with no other apparent problems. In those cases I agree with everyone else, VLC/MPC or any of the other far better featured than WMP free alternatives.