Again, the following info is valid for WindowsXP-SP3 only.
PART TWO:
This article is another collection of relevant facts, observations, and alike incl. restated material from PART ONE. It will give you full understanding of your (corrupt or working installation or uninstallation of) Windows Media Player and what
your logical steps would be to fix the situation yourself. The installation of WMP9+ is always accompanied by the installation of DRM components and individualization ("Upgrade Of Security Components") so we will treat the two aspects too. After reading it, you should be able to troubleshoot your
Windows Media related problems (e.g. understanding why your
unDRM environment doesnt work and how to fix it) on your own, yourself. You may interpret this thread as conscious preparation for any type of
unDRMing techniques with
various unDRM tools. Before we begin let's introduce some abbreviations:
WMP = Windows Media Player (
wmplayer.exe)
WMP9 = WMP version 9.0, WMP10 = WMP version 10.0, etc.
WMP9+ = any WMP version equal to or higher than 9.0
WMFR = Windows Media Format Runtime (or simply: Windows Media Runtime)
WMFR9 = Windows Media Runtime version 9.0, etc.
IBX = IndivBox.key (see
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\IndivBox.key)
IBX version = right-click on IBX, Properties, ..
indvpage = Microsoft's Individualization webpages:
ALT1 vs.
ALT2 vs.
ALT3
thefive = the full set of {
wmVcore.dll|
wmPcore.dll|
wmp.dll|
wmpDXM.dll|
wmpLOC.dll }
wvc =
wmVcore.dll
And some loose text of what the above are about
:
- thefive. Let's assume that you're on a (new|old|clean|dirty|etc) WindowsXP system with a working WMP. Then the WMP installation is fully represented by thefive; compared with a running man thefive would be the main organs {heart, brain, liver, lungs, genitals}: rip off one and the Schwarzenegger would stop running. On a fresh WinXP-SP3 system thefive are all present and bear the same version number 9.0.0.4503. thefive which are in use (i.e. loaded in your system's memory, RAM) are located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\*.dll, while copies of older/newer versions of (some of) thefive are stored elsewhere on hdd. On a dirty WinXP-SP3 system there are quite a few copies of thefive and you can/could ignore them.. because what really counts is the version numbers of thefive in the system32 dir. The \system32\dllcache directory typically contains exact version copies of thefive ... in case a system32 DLL file gets deleted (by user intervention, virus, malware), Windows would automatically "replace" the deleted file with the copy from the dllcache. The 5? Interestingly, it is possible to have a working WinXP with a working WMP where the wvc is not present at all. Clearly, this would be an incomplete WMP installation and the missing wvc would give you much trouble: continue to read and you will understand why.
- wvc. For our purpose, this is the most important file of thefive. It is the only part (=file) of a full WMP installation which handles all DRM-related activity, control and communication. This program (You could regard *.DLL files as programs.) creates the DRM-folder with the IBX and communicates with the online DRM license server. Only with the help of wvc is the online DRM license server then able to check if your wvc is (indeed) properly installed and if the contents of the DRM-folder are valid and if the IBX needs to be updated ("Upgrade"). No surprise, wvc is not present on older Windows systems where the Windows Media DRM (read this!) had not yet been introduced. Having full knowledge of which exact versions of Windows Media components are installed on your system will help you to get through subsequent unDRM procedures, especially because/since Microsoft is said to have released manipulated downloads. Also note that wvc must be present before you can perform certain actions such as: applying a wvc update patch, indvpage, installing WMFR, a.o.
Question: Where to get different new/old versions of wvc? Answer: wvc is distributed within WMFR, within full version setups of WMP9+, and also within WMP (or WinXP) updates (Hotfixes, Updates, KB-Patches, however you call them) - WMFR. In cases where you are supposedly required to install WMP11 (final version or beta version, doesnt matter!) as minimum software system requirement, you are likely not forced to install it but its corresponding WMFR -- Try it, and you will be surprised that installing WMFR11 (instead of WMP11) is sufficient in most cases!
Question: Where to get different new/old version of WMFR? Answer: WMFR is downloadable as standalone download file (wmfdist.exe, wmfdist9.exe, wmfdist10.exe, wmfdist11.exe; not all of these versions are still downloadable as original standalone download file from the official Microsoft website.) and it is also found packaged within the full installer of WMP, for example open WMP11 installer with WinRAR and extract wmfdist11.exe from it. Then again, open wmfdist11.exe with WinRAR and locate wvc. Why wvc again? As mentioned before, wvc is the most relevant program in our discussion and it is the main part of WMFR. And as you know so far, in most cases for our purpose: A discussion of "which WMP version" can be reduced to "which WMFR version", and a discussion of "which WMFR version" can be ultimately reduced to a discussion of "which wvc version" to use. In the end, it all comes down to tinkering with different versions of wvc. - indvpage. indvpage works with Internet Explorer only (e.g. IE8), not with Firefox. It is not mandatory to use this webpage but i recommend using it as helpful "tool" to determine if your system is "DRM-ready". For this page to work at all, wvc must exist on your system (and be in \Windows\system32, of course). If wvc is present (but) in a dubious version number, the Upgrade-button will be greyed out with an "Error on page"-notification in the bottom left corner. If your system is seemingly DRM-ready, then the Upgrade button becomes available: Click on it, it says "Upgrading security components" and then "Upgrade Complete". At this point, the webpage could crash
, which would mean that your wvc version is incompatible with the rest of your WMP installation. Check the versions of thefive and replace the wvc with some other wvc version. Since wvc is contained in WMFR (and is in fact the main part of WMFR!), the easiest way to install a different wvc version is by installing a different WMFR version. Or do the replacement manually.
Question: So what happens when the indvpage upgrades my security components? Answer: As soon as you press the Upgrade button, the online DRM license server (of the indvpage) connects to wvc and then the two together issue a "current" IBX version which corresponds to the installed wvc version. I say "together" because the IBX version does not exclusively depend on the installed wvc version. Since the online DRM license server can be setup in such a way that it checks if a wvc minimum version number is present, the IBX version indirectly/ultimately depends on the (decision taken by the) online DRM license server, too. So with the help of indvpage we are able to predict which IBX version will be generated if we did not use the indvpage Upgrade button but went straight away to our online player, i.e. the software application in question (standalone *.exe, or webpage with embedded WMP or Silverlight) which plays or downloads DRM-protected Windows Media content, for example zune.exe or napster.exe. When the player plays/downloads the DRM-media online, this has the same effect as pressing the Upgrade button of indvpage: the online DRM license server connects to wvc and if there are no further issues with the wvc installation, both "together" check if the IBX version is current, and if it's not, the IBX version is automatically updated.