Windows 7 Media player will not play back BluRay disc's

when my laptop was orderd for me as a gift, being able to play movies on it was key, I can play anything But blu-ray. I will Not add software or anything else to my laptop which is a verywell equipped model and brandspanken new in august of this year. As far as I'm concerned I'm a show me type of gal, I don't have to buy this type of laptop again when it comes to update time. I'm not going to put double the money in some slicktalkin salesrep that say's blue-ray no problem. It certainly isn't, I don't mind watchen a d.v.d...I guess they don't mind losen future sale's. I say to microsoft, you are a huge company that's for sure but never underestimate the power of a granny with a credit card!!! So the beat goes on and the big guy's don't even Blink, oh-well-oh......but thankyou very much for your reply and I take your terrible happening's to heart...I investigated this whole thing for day's, on my laptop  and on foot. All the same result----well if you buy this.........no thankyou. I've got a grand's worth of machinery at home that works just fine till I put a blu-ray disc in it...soooo I won't put one in...simple.  Upgrade at another company down the road, cool beans.

1. Microsoft Windows OS, be it Windows 7 or the upcoming Windows 8, absolutely SHOULD support Blu-ray playback. If it does not, then it is an operating system that does not fully operate. And saying that it supports Blu-ray feedback if you buy third-party software is like saying that you do not support it (because you need to go to another company for support).
2. For many months, I think a couple of years, I used CyberLink's Power DVD 9 Ultra to watch Blu-ray movies and TV series. For me it failed to play only once, for the movie Green Zone. So I bought ArcSoft's Total Media Theater 3 Platinum, which successfully played the movie. But I uninstalled it afterward because I didn't need it to watch anything else.

Until last Friday. After inserting X-Men First Class into my BD-ROM, I got a red-screen message telling me I needed to buy CyberLink's upgrade version of Power DVD to watch the movie. In other words, I was forced to buy CyberLink's newest version, which was Power DVD 11 Ultra.

I did buy it. The base price was about $65, but I thought I had better get the extended download service and the backup disk. The total price + tax was $91.08. But guess what? After downloading and updating this new version of Power DVD, I had to suffer through multiple crashes of my system before I finally got X-Men First Class to play to the end. And I mean severe crashes: no blue screen, total shutdowns that required me to turn my power switch off & on and reboot. Then during succeeding days, Power DVD gave me multiple crashes as I tried to watch Blu-ray versions of  Limitless and The Adjustment Bureau.

Fortunately I remembered that I had Total Media Theater 3 Platinum, stashed away somewhere on my hard drive. I didn't think of trying it until after I had returned the X-Men movie to Netflix, but after reinstalling and updating it, it did allow me to watch Limitless and The Adjustment Bureau. Thank you, ArcSoft, for not forcing me to buy your newest version of Total Media, and thank you for allowing me to watch those two movies.

3. Meanwhile, Microsoft sits back on its lazy, stingy duff and allows things like this to happen. As I initially said, Microsoft Windows' media player absolutely SHOULD support Blu-ray playback. Watching Blu-ray movies is part of my PC experience. Therefore if I pay for software to operate my system, it should operate. Fully.

Lester, You could always buy a reasonably priced TV tuner card, with IR port and remote.    That's what my Media Centre PC has, well actually I've also got an Antec HTPC case with LCD display and remote sensor as well.  But the Antec remote uses mouse control functions whereas my TV card remote is more like a TV remote, with a big green button with windows logo to launch Media Centre.

I must say I was a bit miffed that Media Centre didn't support Blu Ray playback when we went to watch our first BD movie a couple of nights ago (Senna).  Why can't MS even lease the rights and allow those of us who want it to foot the bill by charging a nominal price for the codec bundle to play Blu Ray natively? Surely they could come to some pricing scheme where they're charged on a per sale basis, or a nominal fee for the technology then on a per sale basis.

We built our HTPC with BD drive, and TV tuner (£800 just for the hardware and that was about cost price from my partners computer shop), even a tiny palm held keyboard/mousepad combo as the PC is there for MUSIC, TV and FILMS.  I only wanted to use Media Centre if I could get away with it, but have to have PowerDVD installed.  Which doesn't play within MC.  If I try to play a BD movie, it launches P.DVD outside of MC

Well said Ryan, but I don't think it would cost $20.00 on a volume rights purchase, if you hit 2.00, I think that would be about it.