You have encountered the pervasive invasion of privacy forced upon
everyone by Micro$haft. A few weeks ago I tried playing some content on
my computer and WMP (which, interestingly enough, looks very much like
"wimp", construed as "crybaby about licensing") insisted upon obtaining
a licensing security upgrade. This "upgrade" sends computer-specific
information to Micro$haft servers. This means that whenever you play
media that requires licensing, Micro$haft has a record of you playing
it.
Outside of the invasion of privacy issues, this system is highly
discriminatory. Users like you without Internet access at home are
basically screwed - unable to play what they have purchased. Likewise,
users with slow dial-up connections are forced to sit and wait while
WMP uploads and downloads information about their media selection to
and from Micro$haft. Not everyone with a computer has Internet access,
and Micro$haft's system is creating grounds for a discrimination
lawsuit.
Interestingly enough, I attempted to download the "security upgrade".
Although my connection is good, WMP crapped out. When I clicked the
"Help" button on the error dialog, I was taken to a Microsoft help page
saying "There is no error message defined for this error. We are
looking into it." How helpful. I ended up simply deleting over 1G of
media because of this.
All that aside, there is a way around this. I searched on Google and
found it through a link on the DOOM forums. The process is complicated
and apparently doesn't always work.
Good luck, Agent mirv10.
