Reset Windows, Now Cant Play Protected Recordings

[leebo]

I think I know the answer to this problem, but I may as well ask here before deleting my recordings.

I reset my sisters Windows 8 PC because after changing her CPU, she was getting a "Cannot update Playready" or "Updating playready failed" message. I was not aware that reseting Windows 8 would result in a "This recording must be played back on the computer that recorded it due to copy restrictions" (or something to that effect).

So now the copy "protection" thinks we're trying to play the recordings on a different PC. Is there any way to "fool" it into playing them b4 we delete them?

Thanks for any ideas.

[foxwood]

It's not necessarily the case that PlayReady thinks you're on a different machine, it could just be that it doesn't have a record of the movies being recorded (it's not the recording that remembers the machine it was recorded on, PlayReady remembers what recordings have been recorded). When you reset the machine, it may just have reset the list of remembered recordings. If that's the case, then you might be able to recover that list from a backup, if you had a backup.

Other than that, there's no way to trick PlayReady.

[leebo]

Thank you.

No, I just installed Win8 from scratch a couple of months ago. She hasn't really installed much, and does not create documents. I wasn't expecting this so it didn't occur to be to back up. I guess I didn't really understand what Win8's reset did, exactly.

[LuckyDay]

Before you delete everything you may want to check all of her recordings, they aren't all going to necessarily be copy protected. There are some shows (mostly from network television) that do not record as copy protected.

[leebo]

Yes, I saw that. Thanks.

[cpollitt]

I am about ready to upgrade my Windows 7 HTPC to Windows 8, but I do not want to lose all of the shows that I have recorded. Is there a process to backup or restore playready settings after you upgrade to Windows 8?

What files do I need to backup to keep my PlayReady record of recorded shows? If this has already been described somewhere then can someone please send me a link?

Thank you.

[richard1980]

It's actually very simple:

Step 1: Create a system image.
Step 2: Perform an in-place upgrade, not a clean install. Performing an in-place upgrade will preserve the DRM, whereas a clean install will render protected recordings unplayable.
Step 3: Realize that upgrading your HTPC to W8 was a waste of time.
Step 4: Restore the system image you created in step 1.
Step 5: Install W8 on some other computer. (Optional)

[staknhalo]

Step 3: Realize that upgrading your HTPC to W8 was a waste of time.

I think for those who use a m&kb at their HTPC it's a good choice. I'm not one of those though.

[foxwood]

I think for those who use a m&kb at their HTPC it's a good choice. I'm not one of those though.

How does a mouse and keyboard make Win8 a better platform for WMC than Win7?

[staknhalo]

I think for those who use a m&kb at their HTPC it's a good choice. I'm not one of those though.

How does a mouse and keyboard make Win8 a better platform for WMC than Win7?

It allows you to use the metro apps - which are particularly handy/useful/pretty for a HTPC setup. And then you can include all the OS improvements like storage spaces, increased boot time, ect. Full navigation/functionality of the metro apps is not possible with a remote. Also WMC not launching/focusing on startup is not as big of an issue if you use a m&kb on Win8.

[leebo]

It's actually very simple:

Step 1: Create a system image.
Step 2: Perform an in-place upgrade, not a clean install. Performing an in-place upgrade will preserve the DRM, whereas a clean install will render protected recordings unplayable.
Step 3: Realize that upgrading your HTPC to W8 was a waste of time.
Step 4: Restore the system image you created in step 1.
Step 5: Install W8 on some other computer. (Optional)

Wow, thats so helpful. I suppose another way to put it is, "I don't like Windows 8, so neither should you"!

Btw, I suspect you're wrong about doing an in-place upgrade preserving DRM. I started with Win 8, performed a clean-up (less drastic than doing an in-place upgrade), and still lost the ability to play my recordings.

Higher up in this thread someone suggested it was possible to back up some Play Ready database so you would retain the ability to play protected recordings. They did not specify how.

[foxwood]

Btw, I suspect you're wrong about doing an in-place upgrade preserving DRM. I started with Win 8, performed a clean-up (less drastic than doing an in-place upgrade), and still lost the ability to play my recordings.

Eh, no. The point of resetting Win8 is to throw away all the changes that you made to important system files, like the DRM database. The point of of an in-place upgrade is to keep all the changed system files, like the DRM database.

Higher up in this thread someone suggested it was possible to back up some Play Ready database so you would retain the ability to play protected recordings. They did not specify how.

There was a thread about it only two weeks ago. If you've already searched for PlayReady and couldn't find it, then we probably can't find it either.

[richard1980]

Wow, thats so helpful. I suppose another way to put it is, "I don't like Windows 8, so neither should you"!

It has nothing to do with my opinion of the OS, and everything to do with the fact that W8MC has less functionality that W7MC. I can understand upgrading a non-HTPC to W8, but it doesn't make any sense to upgrade an HTPC.

Btw, I suspect you're wrong about doing an in-place upgrade preserving DRM. I started with Win 8, performed a clean-up (less drastic than doing an in-place upgrade), and still lost the ability to play my recordings.

I am not wrong.

Higher up in this thread someone suggested it was possible to back up some Play Ready database so you would retain the ability to play protected recordings. They did not specify how.

It is possible to backup the DRM keys, but they must be restored to the same OS instance from which they originated.

[cpollitt]

It's actually very simple:

Step 1: Create a system image.
Step 2: Perform an in-place upgrade, not a clean install. Performing an in-place upgrade will preserve the DRM, whereas a clean install will render protected recordings unplayable.
Step 3: Realize that upgrading your HTPC to W8 was a waste of time.
Step 4: Restore the system image you created in step 1.
Step 5: Install W8 on some other computer. (Optional)

WMC on Windows 7 is very unreliable for me on four separate HTPCs. I have four computers, all with different hardware, all with clean installations of Windows 7 and they display several consistent problems with varying frequency. I am running the latest available drivers on all four PCs and I've tried varieties of solutions posted on this and other forums.

I have a Ceton InfiniTV card and WMC often faults out to "No Tuner Available" or "Channel Unavailable" then I reboot and everything is fine again for a few hours. My understanding is that the Ceton drivers for Windows 8 are dramatically more reliable than Windows 7. There are other quirks that I'm hoping will be improved like when I am watching a movie and I hit the stop button then the screen will hang up but the audio will continue playing for about 2-3 minutes before the movie will finally stop and then WMC will start responding like normal again. Also, whenever I stop playing any recorded TV program then WMC will crash and restart... once it restarts then it works fine, just weird that it has to crash every time that I stop playing a recorded TV show. Weird hesitations when it won't respond to remote commands for several seconds after each button push, etc. etc. .... these are just examples of the various quirky problems that I have been unable to resolve with Windows 7.

I have been unable to find solutions to these problems, but my understanding is that Windows 8 will offer some improvements for the base operating system that will make it more robust against these types of issues. If you have any other ideas then I'm all ears, but many have posted about general usability improvements with Windows 8 even though the WMC software has not received much attention.

Thanks.

[leebo]

Cpllitt, have you had anyone out to check the strength and quality of your signal (I'm assuming you have cable)?

I have a Win 7 pc with similar issues,though restarting WMC doesn't fix the problem. But I know I have issues with the cable signal on that machine. Last night it recorded a show on BBC America, but every time I tried to play it, WMC would crash (probably a corrupted recording). I re-recorded the show and it plays fine.

If all your machines are connected to the same cable system, I would look into that.

Btw, we have another pc running Win 8 and never have issues with WMC. Ever.

re the comments about re-setting vs. restoring an image: perhaps you guys are more knowledgeable than I (not much of a challenge). However, I find it illogical that after I cloned my Win 7 system drive to a new, SSD last year, Playready apparently decided I was trying to play my recordings on a different machine and refused to play them.
All other hardware was unchanged.

Maybe that's just sloppy engineering. In any event, we still don't know where this mysterious Playready file is located.

[foxwood]

Maybe that's just sloppy engineering. In any event, we still don't know where this mysterious Playready file is located.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 35&start=0

[richard1980]

WMC on Windows 7 is very unreliable for me on four separate HTPCs. I have four computers, all with different hardware, all with clean installations of Windows 7 and they display several consistent problems with varying frequency. I am running the latest available drivers on all four PCs and I've tried varieties of solutions posted on this and other forums.

I have a Ceton InfiniTV card and WMC often faults out to "No Tuner Available" or "Channel Unavailable" then I reboot and everything is fine again for a few hours. My understanding is that the Ceton drivers for Windows 8 are dramatically more reliable than Windows 7. There are other quirks that I'm hoping will be improved like when I am watching a movie and I hit the stop button then the screen will hang up but the audio will continue playing for about 2-3 minutes before the movie will finally stop and then WMC will start responding like normal again. Also, whenever I stop playing any recorded TV program then WMC will crash and restart... once it restarts then it works fine, just weird that it has to crash every time that I stop playing a recorded TV show. Weird hesitations when it won't respond to remote commands for several seconds after each button push, etc. etc. .... these are just examples of the various quirky problems that I have been unable to resolve with Windows 7.

I'm not sure how reliable Ceton's W8 drivers are, but I find the W7 drivers to be very reliable. I don't know what is causing your hangs/crashes, and it appears you don't either. The way I see it, you are just guessing at a possible solution, and while your guess may end up being correct, I'm fairly certain it's not the only solution.

re the comments about re-setting vs. restoring an image: perhaps you guys are more knowledgeable than I (not much of a challenge). However, I find it illogical that after I cloned my Win 7 system drive to a new, SSD last year, Playready apparently decided I was trying to play my recordings on a different machine and refused to play them.
All other hardware was unchanged.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but PlayReady creates one key at the time a recording is made, and a second key is generated when playback is attempted. Each key is basically a "snapshot" of the hardware/OS/BIOS configuration at the time the key is created. PlayReady has built-in tolerance for a few differences between the keys, but too many differences will cause playback to fail. This is important because it means that you can make a recording (thus generating the original key), then make several changes to the hardware/BIOS, and the 2nd key could still be similar enough to the original key that PlayReady allows playback. However, if you make too many changes, at some point one of your changes will be "the straw that broke the camel's back", and playback will fail because the 2nd key is significantly different from the original key, thus PlayReady thinks you are attempting playback on another computer.

Changing the OS drive alone is not a significant enough change for PlayReady to think you are attempting playback on a different PC. Either something else changed (hardware or BIOS settings) or the cloning process corrupted PlayReady. In any case, your experience was with cloning, not an OS upgrade, so your results are irrelevant to a conversation about OS upgrades.

In any event, we still don't know where this mysterious Playready file is located.

Yes, "we" do. %ProgramData%\Microsoft\PlayReady\mspr.hds

[leebo]

re the comments about re-setting vs. restoring an image: perhaps you guys are more knowledgeable than I (not much of a challenge). Ho.

Changing the OS drive alone is not a significant enough change for PlayReady to think you are attempting playback on a different PC. Either something else changed (hardware or BIOS settings) or the cloning process corrupted PlayReady. In any case, your experience was with cloning, not an OS upgrade, so your results are irrelevant to a conversation about OS upgrades.

Well, actually,I started this thread, and it used to be about loosing the ability to play back recordings on the same machine that made them after using the re-set "feature" in Windows 8. I don't know what its about now.
I would say that since the same company that designed and wrote both the OS and WMC did not foresee (or just didn't care) about this issue, that's sloppy planning and/or designing.

Why on earth would an end user want to loose their recordings? How about a warning: Using the Windows reset feature will make your current protected recordings un-playable!

Thanks for the file location info, btw.

[foxwood]

Well, actually,I started this thread, and it used to be about loosing the ability to play back recordings on the same machine that made them after using the re-set "feature" in Windows 8. I don't know what its about now.
I would say that since the same company that designed and wrote both the OS and WMC did not foresee (or just didn't care) about this issue, that's sloppy planning and/or designing.

Why on earth would an end user want to loose their recordings? How about a warning: Using the Windows reset feature will make your current protected recordings un-playable!

You can Restore, Refresh or Reset Windows 8. You said that you Reset it.

To Reset Windows 8, you have to click on a link that says "Remove everything and reinstall Windows".

[richard1980]

Why on earth would an end user want to loose their recordings? How about a warning: Using the Windows reset feature will make your current protected recordings un-playable!

First, the description of Reset states "Remove everything and reinstall Windows". Additionally, after you click the button that says "reinstall Windows", you are shown another screen with a description of what will happen. It says "All your personal files and apps will be removed" and "Your PC settings will be changed back to their defaults". I'm not sure what is unclear about any of the text. It is very clear to me that a reset is the same as a clean install. But in case someone still can't understand, Microsoft went into further detail here:

Resetting your Windows 8 PC goes like this:

1. The PC boots into the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE).
2. Windows RE erases and formats the hard drive partitions on which Windows and personal data reside.
3. Windows RE installs a fresh copy of Windows.
4. The PC restarts into the newly installed copy of Windows.

Quite frankly, it appears you clicked something without fully understanding what you were clicking.

I don't know what its about now.

There are three separate scenarios discussed in this thread. First, you introduced the W8 Reset scenario. Second, cpollitt introduced the upgrade from W7 to W8 scenario. Third, you introduced the W7 cloned drive scenario.