Are there any PlayReady workarounds in 2023?

[CZ Eddie]

I'm able to P2V my working protected content/CableCard physical desktop into an ESXi virtual machine.
But of course, the process upsets PlayReady which now wants to do an "update".
And the PlayReady servers aren't "listening" any longer. So, it's not possible to "update" PlayReady.

Does anyone know of any workarounds to force WMC to NOT try and do a PlayReady update?

Or do you know of a way to do a P2V without upsetting PlayReady so it doesn't try to do an update?

[CZ Eddie]

Geez, this sucks.

I created my original backup on a VGA-only tiny little PC.
So, now I have no way to restore that backup onto a larger PC that will be compatible with an HDMI output.

It's an Optiplex 780 Ultra Small Form Factor.
And I plugged the HDD into an Optiplex 780 Small Form Factor.

So, same basic motherboard. Same chipset. Just a couple more options, like the addition of a PCIe slot (empty).

All else was identical. Transferred the PROC and RAM over. And didn't install any video card yet.

But the stupid thing wants to do a PlayReady update as soon as I try to play any channels.

This SUCKS.
The onboard VGA is terrible video quality and I don't know how to get that to work with my whole-house HDMI setup.
I mean, I can get that figured out but I hate that I've spent a hundred hours trying one thing after another to get it all to work the way I wanted.

[Glennt]

I installed & updated playready yesterday
had to try a few times but all went ok
Cheers

[CZ Eddie]

I installed & updated playready yesterday
had to try a few times but all went ok
Cheers

Seriously?!!
Are you using a CableCard setup?

[CZ Eddie]

Still seems to be down for me.

Did you install PlayReady from PlayReadyPC_x64.msi?
Or from within WMC itself?

Any issues with Digital Activation?

[CZ Eddie]

Hmm, actually the error message now isn't the "cannot connect to the Internet" that I've been getting.

Now the error is the familiar old "the playready update was incomplete".
So, maybe that's good news and now I can simply troubleshoot PlayReady like we used to!

[CZ Eddie]

YESSSSSSSSSS it's back online!!!
Thank you to whomever turned the server back on.
I pray good fortune comes your way!

And thank you, Glennt for making me take another look before I wiped my computer!
I spent weeks trying to get this to work.
On one day when I was home sick, I just kept clicking "try again" for many hours, over and over.

Gave up, powered the computer off until today and voila... working again!

After fixing a broken PlayReady of course. Using these ever faithful directions:
viewtopic.php?t=3760#p36116

[Glennt]

Glad you got it sorted
Cheers

[CZ Eddie]

Glad you got it sorted
Cheers

I didn't do anything different.
It just started working suddenly!
Maybe the server was mistakenly turned off and they turned it back on.


Still doesn't work for virtual machines though.
Only physical, so far.

[dougpowers1965]

Hi all. I was also having Playready issues among others with a fresh Win7 install. I do use a CableCARD (Ceton infinitv 6 eth) At first WMC got hung on even installing Playready so I did that manually, installing Version 1.3.0. Then it got hung on activation of WMC (on that step where the default WMC key shows up kinda grayed out) and would not continue, stating unable to contact the server. So then I thought to go into Windows under the admin user account and tried again. Activation goes ok but this time the key wasn't "grayed out" and had a continue button so went through all those steps and all went ok.. Then went to look for the activate Playready under Setting\TV\TV Signal and and it's not there, only the other four (Set Up TV Signal, Activate Digital Cable, Digital Tuner Diagnostics and Help setting up CableCARD) So I try an encrypted cable channel and viola, it's working. Went through EPG123 to get the guide and going all is well. I really don't know what made the difference but happy nevertheless.

[CZ Eddie]

VM's are finally working as well. But I haven't yet figured out HOW to make them work.
I just accidentally got one to work somehow, last night.
I'll see if I can figure out how to reproduce working results.
Because it's not working with a "regular" VM.

[CZ Eddie]

I wish this forum software would give us the option to edit posts.
We can only edit right afterwards. Can't edit after that.

So, VM's will not install or update PlayReady if you first install all MS updates.

That was my method. Create a VM and get it updated all the way.
And then start installing video card and set up WMC.
But when you do that, you cannot install PlayReady.

The trick is to install your video card and then set up WMC *first*.
And THEN you can do all the MS updates.

There is much more gray area than this, but that's the extremely basic summary of it.