Microsoft Sucks On So Many Levels

My wife and I wanted to watch a movie in bed tonight. I grabbed my 17" Dell laptop with Windows XP on it, and we crawled into bed to enjoy the movie. Microsoft has a program called Windows Media Player, only it doesn't play the media we had. DVDs are apparently not a media that Microsoft has designed its Windows Media Player to play. Here is the error I got (click on the picture to enlarge): Just for kicks, I clicked on the "Web Help" button and found several options I could download for a fee. It looks like $14.99 will get me a decoder, but how do I know this decoder will work for all DVDs I want to watch on my "Microsoft Windows XP with Windows Media Player" computer? I DON'T. This is just another reason to buy Apple. Microsoft sucks on so many levels. Don't worry people, I've heard of and love freeware like VLC. It works wonderfully. In fact, I recommend this free media player because it will work with allllllll sorts of media. Oh yeah, and it's free.