Digital Rights Management (DRM) Corruption Issues
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There are several possibilities such as the ones listed below which can cause corruption of the DRM store on your computer:
CPU change (processor swap)
Moving the hard disk on which music was initially downloaded, from one computer to another
Using products such as registry cleaners which may alter DRM settings in ways that cause corruption
Corruption of DRM store may cause one of the following errors to be thrown when you try to authorize your computer, purchase Music or perform other MSN Music related operations:
"There was a problem attempting to individualize your computer"
"The license to play the packaged media is invalid."
"Secure storage protection error. Restore your licenses from a previous backup and try again."
Alternately, one may see failures in the Windows Media DRM Version test (with a code 105) or in the Digital Rights Management Test, after running the MSN Entertainment Download Troubleshooter. If you have not run the MSN Entertainment Download Troubleshooter yet, please do so following the instructions below:
Access the troubleshooter
It will run a basic set of tests and present results, along with instructions to install the MSN Entertainment Download Troubleshooter ActiveX control.
For any test failures, the troubleshooter will provide self-explanatory diagnosis messages that you can follow to resolve the failure:
For eg., if you are on Windows XP SP2 and your Internet Options do not allow downloading signed ActiveX controls, you may not be able to install the MSN Music Assistant ActiveX or the MSN Entertainment Download Troubleshooter ActiveX. In this case, please follow the suggested diagnosis to update your Internet Options and run the Troubleshooter again.
After resolving any basic test failures, if you see failures in one of the following tests related to Digital Rights Management, please try the suggested resolution in the next section:
Digital Rights Management Test
Windows Media DRM Version Test (with a code 105 from the MSN Entertainment Download Troubleshooter)
Resolution
To work around this issue, we need to restore the DRM system to a "clean" state on the affected computer. If Windows Media Player is installed on your computer, please upgrade to the latest version of Windows Media Player before restoring the DRM system to a clean state.
To restore the DRM system to a clean state:
Please close all IE and WMP windows that you might currently have open, on your computer.
Check if you might have downloaded any protected music to this computer, from sources other than MSN Music (Licenses acquired from MSN Music cannot be backed up/restored. They can only be moved to other computers via authorization/de-authorization). If so, the licenses for those need to be backed up to a disk following the process mentioned below.
Please be advised that if the backup fails due to the DRM store being corrupt beyond repair, you will lose their licenses acquired from non-MSN Music sites and will have to work with those vendors again to recover that music. Licenses from MSN Music are not lost or affected in any way by the backup/restore process.
If you wish to proceed, follow the steps below:
In Windows Media Player, click License Management on the Tools menu.
Select an appropriate backup location and choose the option to 'Backup Now'.
Note: WMDRM licenses do not implicitly support backup. The license issuer must enable this right. It is possible that some licenses will not be backed up, and thus the content will not be able to be accessed after license restoration. Please check with the license issuer (likely the content service you used to acquire this content) to confirm whether they support the Backup & Restore feature of Windows Media DRM.
If the DRM store is corrupted beyond repair, the backup operation might fail. In that case or if it is not possible to backup for some other reason, proceed to the next step.
Rename the DRM folder so that the corrupt version will not be used by WMP and a new DRM directory will be created on the next attempt to authorize for MSN Music.
Note that the DRM folder is a hidden system folder. You may have to:
Click Folder Options on the Tools menu, click View, and then click Show hidden files and folders.
Click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box.
The typical location of the DRM folder is:
In Microsoft Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM
In Microsoft Windows 2000: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM
In Microsoft Windows 98: C:\Windows\All Users\DRM
In Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me): C:\Windows\DRM
If you have any doubt about the location of the DRM folder, the exact location of the DRM folder on the computer is stored in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\DRM\DataPath Note: The data is in binary format in the registry. To see the path, you need to double-click the "DataPath" name and look on the right hand side of the "Edit Binary Value" dialog that pops up.
Restore the backed up licenses (if backup was successful) in Windows Media Player by clicking License Management on the Tools menu. Note that this step requires a connection to the Internet.
Sign in to your MSN Music account, de-authorize and re-authorize this computer for MSN Music following instructions provided here. Note: Make sure that you upgrade to Windows Media Player 10 if you are not already on that version, prior to de-authorizing your computer for MSN Music.
