No, I’m not making this up. Come the day you buy a Windows 8 PC, or if you’re brave enough to install it yourself on an older PC, you’ll find that Windows 8 can’t play DVDs. You can also forget about TV tuner support and DVD Video Object (VOB) file playback. They’re gone too.

Microsoft did this because it didn’t want to pay for the video codecs you need to watch DVDs. For a time, Microsoft will let you “upgrade” to what was once a standard feature for free, but as you know Microsoft is still being coy about Windows’ final pricing and it doesn’t appear that it will be bundled by default into new Windows 8 PC.

So, what do you do?

How to watch DVDs on your Windows 8 PC: VideoLAN’s VLC. More >