convert wma files to mp3

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mgilliam

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May 17, 2014
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Just purchased a brand new computer. It has an OEM version of Windows professional 64 bit installed. Everything is beautiful ....except our audio files. Over the years we have collected up a large library of music. Some was from Napster years ago and other sources. Some was paid for and some was free. We had some very old music that I would really like to preserve. We now receive this message when we try to play our music

"Your media usage rights have become corrupted or are no longer valid. This might happen if you have replaced hardware components in your computer."

Okay so I go to the microsoft website. The situation is addressed there, but it's not working. I have set my folders to show hidden files. Step two is to follow this path C then program data then microsoft then windows to find the DRM file. From there you are supposed to rename it backup and go on with the solution. I have tried this process twice, but there is no DRM file on my machine that I can find. I've tried searching for the file also. We are new to windows 7 and its not helping, I'm sure. Any suggestions. We downloaded the audials program hoping to be able to convert these files out of .wma but no avail. The files show locked under this program and it will not convert them. I am so disgusted at this point. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

nukemaster

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If you still have the system that you purchased the files on, you should be able to covert them or burn them to CD for re-ripping.

This was the big issue with DRM. It locked you to a limited number of devices and I am not even sure if the Plays for Sure DRM even still has support.

An issue with converting from format to format is also audio quality loss. If the file quality is high, I would recommend burning an Audio CD(not just burning WMA to the cd, but Audio CD with CDA files and all).

Now if you do not have the old computer any more, It may be harder to deal with. You may have to contact the place of purchase for help. This is one reason I never bought DRM containing music. CD's offered better quality and my own choice of getting lossless or lossy files when I rip them.

To make this clear it is a DRM(Digital Right Management) issue more than a WMA issue. This is the music industries way of preventing music from being shared and and you see, it can hurt the paying customer in the end.
 
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