Lost Controls On Toshiba

[vauny]

Downloaded windows 8.1 on laptop - now the toshiba video player won't work , no options to play the dvd on the screen - although the dvd disc is recognised by the laptop

[Buenchico]

According to this thread, despite charging people lots of money for their operating system, Microsoft decided not to pay the for the licensing rights that would allow Windows Media Player to play DVDs in Windows 8.1:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2229969/windows-play-dvds.html

However that's no great loss because Windows Media Player is a pathetic video player anyway. The free player widely recommended in the technical press (and on BBC technology programmes) is the one mentioned in that thread, i.e. VLC:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.en_GB.html

VLC is definitely outstanding but it's also got a lesser-known rival, which is at least as good, called GOM:
http://www.gomlab.com/eng/

Either of those should fix your problem.

[VHG]

The reason vlc works is that it is written in France and for some reason they don't pay the license fees to include the DVD player code.

The reason Microsoft did not pay the license to include the DVD player code in windows 8 is that they have TOC pay it for each copy of windows sold yet they found out only about 5% of people ever used it so I don't blame Microsoft.

[vauny]

thank you both