Windows Media Player and Silverlight Are Losing Legacy DRM Services on Windows 7 and 8

An anonymous reader shares a report: Per a recent update to Microsoft's Deprecated Windows features page, Legacy DRM services utilized by Windows Media Player and Silverlight clients for Windows 7 and Windows 8 are now deprecated. This will prevent the streaming or playback of DRM-protected content in those applications on those operating systems. It also includes playing content from personal CD rips and streaming from a Silverlight or Windows 8 client to an Xbox 360 if you were still doing that.

For those unfamiliar, "DRM" refers to Digital Rights Management. Basically, DRM tech ensures that you aren't stealing or playing back pirated content. Of course, piracy still exists, but these days, most officially distributed movies, TV shows, games, etc., all involve some form of DRM unless explicitly advertised as DRM-free. DRM does seem like harmless piracy prevention on paper. Still, it hasn't been all that effective at eliminating piracy -- and where it is implemented, it mainly punishes or inconveniences paying customers. It is an excellent example of DRM's folly. Now, anyone who had previously opted into Microsoft's legitimate media streaming ecosystem with Windows 7 and 8 is being penalized for buying media legitimately since it will no longer work without them being forced to pivot to other streaming solutions.

But... but...

[vbdasc]

I thought it playsforsure?

Digital Restrictions Management

[gavron]

Tomshardware is correct. DRM hurts the lawful paying users while the "pirates" work around it.
It's a shame Microsoft is pulling support for what works for their legacy users. But hey, gotta sell
more Windows 11 licenses somehow.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Askmum]

I'm still on Windows 7. I'm now seriously contemplating upgrading. It will probably be Linux.

Re:

[kenh]

I eagerly await the stock market's reaction to you're leaving Windows 7 to go to the latest version of a 50 year old OS - I suspect the impact will be tremendous...

Re:

[bn-7bc]

Close put no cigar, toy where off by about a decade windows was lanced on comdex in 1983 but 1.0 did not released until November 20, 1985

Re:

[caseih]

He's referring to Unix and its descendents and Linux of course.
Not windows.

I remember the pundit John C Dvorak writing in PC magazine back in the early 90s how Unix grey beards and universities needed to let Unix go and embrace the windows future. Unix was holding them back he claimed. Funny how wrong he was about Unix.

Re:

[Saffaya]

I am sure Microsoft is pleased with your pandering of their privacy-raping version of their OS.
Do not mind the mark on your neck from the collar of serfdom.

Re:

[vbdasc]

It's not polite, man. Linux is barely 33 years old.

Re: Digital Restrictions Management

[Z00L00K]

The most used operating systems have a design that's about 30 to 50 years old.

Re:

[kenh]

Uh, you do know if you have a valid OEM/Retail Win 7 or Win 8/8.1 you have a free upgrade path to Win 11.

No real profit in "free", and if you aren't running a valid OEM/Retail Win 7 or 8/8.1, you aren't really a customer of Microsoft's, so their interest in going out of their way to support you running long-deprecated without paying them any money.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Tx]

Uh, you do know if you have a valid OEM/Retail Win 7 or Win 8/8.1 you have a free upgrade path to Win 11

A machine running Windows 7 or 8 is almost certainly not going to meet the Windows 11 requirements. I thought the free upgrades to Windows 10 were stopped last year, as reported e.g. here. [zdnet.com]

Re:

[Malc]

It might work if you disable TPM support. Look for instructions to install Win 11 in Boot Camp, for example (Macs don't have the necessary TPM hardware).

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

The risk there is one update enabling this feature again.

Re:

[ukoda]

Does that 'upgrade path' allow them to play the DRM files they are currently enjoying under Win 7? BTW, that is a real question, not flame bait. I have always avoid DRM media for concerns about such things, but genuinely wonder if these users can bring their DRM media along with moving to a new OS or are they screwed?

Re:

[unrtst]

Uh, you do know if you have a valid OEM/Retail Win 7 or Win 8/8.1 you have a free upgrade path to Win 11.

Where? They stopped the free upgrade to Windows 10. Windows 11 is unlikely to work on anything that shipped with Windows 7, nor for most of those shipped with Windows 8/8.1 (TPM requirements and such).

Re:

[tbords]

Uh, you do know if you have a valid OEM/Retail Win 7 or Win 8/8.1 you have a free upgrade path to Win 11.

No real profit in "free", and if you aren't running a valid OEM/Retail Win 7 or 8/8.1, you aren't really a customer of Microsoft's, so their interest in going out of their way to support you running long-deprecated without paying them any money.

The profit isn't in the license, it's in the users data.

Re:

[antdude]

I thought MS ended that free upgrade offer last year or so.

DRM meant Digital Restrictions Management

[fintux]

Originally, DRM stood for Digital Restrictions Management, but because it basically was too honest, they changed R stand for "rights" instead. DRM has never given anyone any rights, it has only ever taken them away. But people are much happier when they think they are getting rights instead of restrictions.

Re:

[Stormwatch]

Digital rights minimization, because it takes away your freedom.

Re:

[rossdee]

I think the rights referred to are that of the copyright holder (to continue making money off of the IP that they bought.)

Re:

[jvkjvk]

Let's compromise:
Digital Restrictions Maximization?

Both people affected by this are furious

[thegarbz]

Seriously though who was using this in this way? Silverlight has been dead since the Windows 7 days, and I don't know of anyone who was ripping personal CDs and applying DRM to them using Windows Media Player (I didn't know you could even do that). About 1 year after this was released Apple announced the end of DRM on music so the tides shifted really really early.

Who is affected by this?

Re:

[Malc]

Silverlight was used for streaming and has long be superseded by other streaming formats like MPEG-DASH and HLS. Was it ever used for local offline content?

Re:

[Megane]

It was used for the configuration program for the Logitech Harmony remote. That was the only reason I ever had to deal with Silverblight. And I hated that thing (the remote) because it had a fundamental design assumption that you would only ever want to do one activity at a time with one screen, and it would switch between activities. But I mostly used two screens, and just wanted something that could send the right remote codes.

But I could have hated it more. While I had a model that used AA batteries, th

Re:

[Lonewolf666]

I don't know of anyone who was ripping personal CDs and applying DRM to them using Windows Media Player (I didn't know you could even do that)

Neither did I know that was possible. When I started ripping CDs, I did not even consider a DRMed format as target. Instead it was CD => FLAC or CD => MP3 if I wanted to keep file sizes small. And in my circle of acquaintances it was the same.

I guess that leaves a small minority of Windows users shafted. Bad for them, but for the rest of us it is a reminder why to avoid DRM.

Re: Both people affected by this are furious

[Anamon]

I wonder if/when we ever reach a point where enough of these things happened to also let the wider public get wise about DRM and start to consciously avoid it. I think most technically adept people would never consider paying actual money for media which is "defective by design" through DRM, unless they already know a 100% sure way they can get rid of it.

This isn't the first DRM'ed media ecosystem to be killed off and take every customer's "purchases" with them (not even the first by Microsoft) and it won't

It's about time to upgrade, isn't it?

[kenh]

Windows 7 went End-of-Life in January, 2020, and Windows 8/8.1 in 2018 - its about time to upgrade, isn't it?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're close, but still a bit off - Windows 8.1 didn't go EOL until 2023.

Re:

[Calydor]

If you're just using the computer as a media center, it plays all your stuff (until now), and the hardware is all working fine - why throw several hundred dollars at upgrading?

Re:

[codebase7]

Because some jackass on the internet claims you need to upgrade NOW! for them to maintain their feelings of superiority?

Context

[Petersko]

Baked into DRM is the implicit guarantee that some day the platform you are using will no longer be viable. In this case your particular player will stop working, but your library is still yours. When you find yourself on a supported platform, it'll be there. This was coming. It took a long time to get here. Windows 7 is almost a decade past original EOL after all.

Now when a service not only turns off tech but effectively torches libraries, that's different. And that's coming too. Already happened... Funimation, right?

Easy answer going forward is to rethink digital purchases. Weigh convenience and price, consider the longevity of the provider, and think of it as long term rental. Then make your decision.

Re: Context

[Slashythenkilly]

or learn to screen record. Fukem

Re:

[Ed Tice]

Very few digital purchases make sense anymore even if they weren't long-term rentals. Many people hate it, but most digital content is now cheaper and more accessible via short-term rentals. Services like Prime Video are cheaper than a DVD collection.

DRM is fine if

[ukoda]

DRM is fine if you make clear to consumers they are not buying the content, but only renting it for an undefined period of time. The real problem is no effort is made to make the distinction clear to consumers, who always feel shafted down the line when they discover they don't own what they paid for.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not fine at all, even if you make it clear.

A company should have to clearly *define* the minimum time period, and provide a refund if that is not achieved. Or remove the DRM if they don't want to keep the DRM mechanism working or give a refund.

Otherwise you're saying it's fine to explicitly tell the consumer "It's yours to play for an indefinite period" and then take it away the next day and say "well, you were warned, we said 'indefinite'!".

Re:

[sjames]

Imagine if you "buy" a couch and then a year or two later, while you're at work, a couple guys from the furniture store let themselves in and haul it away. They claim that since you rented it from them (as clearly outlined on page 235 of the contract in white on white 2 point type) and left a note, it totally isn't burglary. Nevermind that the word rent was never uttered when you bought it at the "sale".

Re:

[codebase7]

You forgot that they buried said contract under the support bar so it wasn't visible to you at the time of the "sale".

Re:

[Waccoon]

Of course it's made clear. They always tell you a zillion times that you don't own anything. The problem is the very concept of "undefined period of time".

I feel it should be illegal to offer a subscription, lease, or rental for an "undefined" time period. There should always be a minimum support period specified.

I don't understand how this works ...

[CaptainOfSpray]

I have a Win 7 on a laptop (dual boot with Linux). It does play such content now.

But this Win 7 system has not been updated in years, and never will be. The TPM chip is disabled in BIOS. Yet the content plays.

So how the flying frig are Microsoft going to be able to prevent me playing my content? Does the player do a some kind of server access to find out if I'm allowed?

Re:

[usedtobestine]

Maybe they put a "don't run after" date in the DRM library? I've been trying to think of a good reason for this to be true, but previously unannounced whilte I read through the comments above.

I'll have to go in the other room this afternoon and find a DVD to play in my old Win7 machine...just to find out if it generates an error.

Re:

[innocent_white_lamb]

Flashplayer did that. They released an update to their program that had a time bomb set for a year or two afterward. Then when the time came they said, "Sorry, the program is deprecated" and anyone who had upgraded the program within the past couple of years was outta luck.

Re: I don't understand how this works ...

[Anamon]

I assume your files need to be "unlocked" by retrieving a license from some license server, which will be cryptographically tied to some identifier of your machine so it only plays there. That server is likely what's being shut down. I think you'll find some setting in WMP about "automatically retrieve licenses".

Usually, what this means is that your files will keep playing on this machine, but any change such as an OS update or replacing some hardware might change your hardware ID, which would require retri

Re:

[CaptainOfSpray]

Thank you. That makes sense, as to how it works.

And reminds me of why I dumped Windows and its works a decade ago.

DRM hampers playing content (ftfy)

[valentyn]

For those unfamiliar, "DRM" refers to Digital Rights Management. Basically, DRM tech prevents you from playing back any content on devices that have not been explicitly authorized to do so by large media companies. Of course, free playback still exists, but these days, most officially distributed movies, TV shows, games, etc., all involve some form of DRM unless explicitly advertised as DRM-free. (FTFY)

Re: DRM hampers playing content (ftfy)

[Anamon]

Music being the exception, I think it would be pretty difficult to still find a download store that slaps DRM on their files. All the ones I know and use (Bandcamp, Qobuz, Apple, Juno, Bleep, Boomkat, Beatport, HD Tracks, …) are explicitly DRM-free.

I haven't heard of the music industry crashing because of this, but the movie and game industry still seem to think that giving paying customers an actual high quality product in return will lead to a fiery painful hellscape.

As for g

Windows Media Player??

[DERoss]

Windows Media Player itself was deprecated a few years ago. Try Real Player from [http://www.real.com/index.html], WACUP from [https://getwacup.com/], or VLC from [http://www.videolan.org/].

Always pirate.

[Yourself]

Sh1t like this is why I always pirate my purchased content. As backup for a-hole moves like this.