Dear Lifehacker My laptop came with a Blu-ray drive, but I can't seem to play Blu-rays with it, and everyone says I need to buy extra expensive soft ...

Unlike Windows 7 and its other predecessors, Windows 8 won't play DVDs natively. Fortunately, there are low-cost ways around the problem.

How to play DVDs and Blu-ray discs in Windows 8 With the release of Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro, Microsoft made the decision to remove DVD playback, and forego the inclusion of Blu-ray playback.