Windows – Why can’t I play DVDs on Windows 8 Pro with Media Center Pack

I have a laptop with Windows 8 Pro with Media Center (64-bit), but neither Media Player or Media Center can play DVDs.

Have I done something wrong? Did the Feature Pack not install correctly? Should this work?

Can I somehow uninstall and reinstall the Media Pack?

Details

So I upgraded by Windows 7 Home Premium laptop to Windows 8 Pro based on Microsoft's low pricing. I also grabbed my free upgrade to Media Pack and followed the instructions on that page to add my feature pack.

Alas! I still cannot play DVDs via either Media Center or Player.

Various Context

Thinking I might need to re-install the pack, I found that I could no longer add any more feature packs (searching for "add features" settings only shows "Turn Windows Features On and Off"). Media Center and Media Player are both enabled in Windows Features. I cannot see any way to remove or downgrade from the Media Pack, nor to add any more feature packs.

I installed a codec pack (32-bit) from Shark007, which has not allowed me to play DVDs (although did allow me to play various other media files).

Media Player can play DTV recorded on another Windows 7 box, but Media Center cannot.

VLC plays DVDs OK, but I'd prefer to figure out what the root cause of this problem is.

There were no errors or other indications that the Media Pack failed to install; the installation itself was quite smooth. I've checked over the event log and can't see anything obviously out of place.

Before upgrading to Windows 7, I could play DVDs OK.

Screenshots

System Information, showing I have Windows 8 Pro with Media Center

When playing a DVD, Media Player gives an error: "The selected file has an extension that is not recognised by Windows…"

When I click "Yes", it fails saying: "Windows Media Player cannot find the file…"

Media Center says: "The file type is not recognized and cannot be played", along with some codec related stuff.

I can browse the files OK via My Computer on any video DVD.

I seem to remember seeing the DVD listed in the left pane, but that's not the case any more. The DVD is listed as "unknown".

The actual error reported by Media Player is C00D1197, which links to a rather generic help web page.

Additional

So I got a list of the codecs Media Player has installed. Do these look right?

TYPE   NAME                             BINARY           VERSION 
video  LAV Video Decoder                LAVVideo.ax      0.52.0.0
video  Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder  msmpeg2vdec.dll  12.0.9200.16429
audio  LAV Audio Decoder                lavaudio.ax      0.52.0.0
audio  Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder  msmpeg2adec.dll  12.0.8506.0

lavaudio.ax is not reported when running the 64 bit Media Player, for whatever that's worth.

Running sfc /scannow as admin found corrupted files and repaired them. But still cannot play DVDs. Relevant logs:

2012-11-23 09:22:53, Info  CSI    000006db [SR] Repairing 2 components
2012-11-23 09:22:53, Info  CSI    000006dc [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2012-11-23 09:22:53, Info  CSI    000006dd [SR] Repairing corrupted file [ml:60{30},l:58{29}]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\en-US"\[l:46{23}]"windows.ui.xaml.dll.mui" from store
2012-11-23 09:22:53, Info  CSI    000006de [SR] Repairing corrupted file [ml:48{24},l:46{23}]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64"\[l:16{8}]"mfds.dll" from store
2012-11-23 09:22:53, Info  CSI    000006df [SR] Repair complete