Dell MediaDirect - Requires a full reinstall of OS???

Hi, I bought a XPS M1730 laptop back in January 2008.

Dell MediaDirect 3.2 was installed on the laptop and worked great. I tested it with Blu-Ray discs and all was fine.

Last week, I bought a TV series on Blu-Ray discs (Heroes Season 2). When I inserted the first disc, the menu did not appear correctly. Some items were showing and some were not (for example, the "Play" menu was there but the "Chapters" menu was not).

I clicked on the upgrade icon and got a message stating that an upgrade was available (3.3). I proceeded with the upgrade and all the menus were now showing. Great!

But, when I clicked on "Play" or chose a specific chapter, the FBI warning shows up, followed by the studio's splash (in this case Universal) and then, nothing.

The movie does not start. The disc is being accessed like crazy, but nothing happens. When I hit "Stop", MediaDirect freezes.

I checked on the box and saw, in very small letters (black over dark metallic blue background) that the movie requires "Profile 1.1 or greater" to play.

I couldn't find any information regarding MediaDirect's profile level, so I called support.

After half an hour, the tech told me "It's probably the discs that are bad, go exchange them". Which I did without any more success.

I called back support and this guy seemed to know quite a bit more than the first one. He took control of my computer and checked several things. He was surprised to know that I have MediaDirect version 3.3. Told me I should have 3.4. Since I got no MediaDirect disc shipped with the laptop (apparently a shipping error), he sent it to me via courier.

Version 3.5 arrived two days later. When I checked, it said I had to back everything up, reformat the hard drive, reinstall the OS (Vista) and then MediaDirect

I thought there should be another way, that it was impossible that I should have to reinstall the OS in order to "upgrade" MediaDirect from 3.3 to 3.5...!!! :smileysurprised:

So I called support again. After about an hour on the phone, the tech was insisting that I reformat and reinstall the OS!!!

I told him it was out of the question. I don't want to reinstall (a) the OS and (b) all my applications just to "UPGRADE" a piece of software.

He said that was the only way... But that he would guide me through it...

I told him to close the case, that I refused to do that and spend a couple of days reinstalling everything.

I'm totally frustrated over this as this should be an "upgrade". Not a "reinstall"... The MediaDirect partition is there and works fine (except for this profile issue).

Am I the only one finding that reinstalling the OS over a piece of software is a bit "drastic"??? I find this totally unacceptable.

To resolve my issue, I turned around and upgraded an old version of Cyberlink MyDVD to version 8 and presto, within 15 minutes, my Blu-Ray disc plays in its entirety! MyDVD v8 is "Profile 2.0 compliant".

I wonder if support realizes what is implied by "reinstalling the OS"... :smileymad: