When you install Windows 8 on your technique, you gain access to a amount of new features. Some are clear upgrades over previous versions of Windows?athe new system-wide search, for instance?awhile others are far more controversial "side-grades," rather than clear improvements. There's one thing that's a clear-cut downgrade, though: DVD playback.

Even though earlier versions of Windows included a free, built-in DVD player, cheap office 2013 pro plus and Windows 8.1 have no such functionality. It can still read information DVDs, but if you want to play that copy of Rocky IV you got for $2 on clearance at Target, you're out of luck.

Fortunately, you've got plenty of options for restoring DVD-playback functionality to Windows 8, for free. Here's what we recommend:

Before you do anything else, check to make sure that you in fact can't play a DVD in your computer. If you bought a boxed Windows 8 laptop or desktop computer with a DVD drive, the manufacturer will almost certainly have pre-loaded it with DVD playback software. Pop a DVD in and see if it plays!

If you're upgrading to microsoft office professional plus 2013 or built your own Pc from scratch, you'll in fact have to download software to watch DVDs. Fortunately, there's a free, fast way to get DVD playback in VLC, a powerful media player from VideoLAN.

VLC's a handy program to have on any new technique, anyway, as it's capable of opening virtually any audio or visual file format, including quite a few that Windows Media Player can't handle. If you want to play Blu-ray discs, there's a codec pack of questionable legality (and hit-and-miss functionality) offered. Alternatively, you could download a premium program such as CyberLink's $55 PowerDVD 12, which plays both DVDs and Blu-ray discs without a hitch.

If you have the standard version of Windows 8, you can't download Windows Media Center without also paying $100 to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro. If you're just looking for DVD playback and could care less about buy windows 7 other special offerings, we'd recommend just going with the VLC option above.