Definitive Windows XP Instructions for Solving Netflix’s Silverlight-related Errors (e.g., N8152 DRM error), as of June 27, 2010.

Ever since Netflix adopted Silverlight’s streaming video standard, many Netflix users have had tremendous and various difficulties watching streaming video.

These problems manifest themselves in a variety of ways, e.g., N8152 DRM errors.

If you call Netflix, their customer service representations will likely not really know how to solve your problem. They will ask you to install and uninstall Silverlight. When that does not solve the problem, they will ask you to directly contact Microsoft.

Because you don’t have much confidence that Microsoft will give you personalized customer service attention, you choose – probably wisely – not to contact Microsoft. Instead, you search the web for answers. There’s a jumble of conflicting information out there, which frustrates you.

Well, today is your lucky day.

The following instructions will in all likelihood fix your problem, if you are using Windows XP.

Initial Step

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1. Go to Control Panel –> Add/Remove Programs –> Uninstall Microsoft Silverlight.

2. Go to Start Menu –> Programs. If you see Microsoft Silverlight, delete it.

Step 1

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Remove files related to Silverlight

1. Open C:\Program Files.

2. Find the folder named Microsoft Silverlight and then delete it.

Note: I assume your Windows is installed on drive C.

Step 2

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Remove registry keys related to Silverlight

1. Click Start, click Run, type “regedit” (without quotation marks) in the Open box, and then click OK. The Registry Editor program will come up.

2. Navigate to the following folder in the left pane if it exists.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Silverlight

3. Right click on Silverlight then click on “Permissions…”.

4. Please check if Administrators is listed in the Group and User name list. If not, please click the Add button and type “Administrators” in the open window and click OK to add this group.

5. Highlight Administrators and check on Full Control under Accept.

6. Click the Advanced button and choose the Owner tab.

7. Highlight the current user account in the list and mark the check box before Replace owner on subcontainers and objects.

8. Click OK to save changes and wait for the system to transfer the ownership of all the objects.

9. Delete the Silverlight entry.

10. Use the same steps to delete the following entries if they exist:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{89F4137D-6C26-4A84-BDB8-2E5A4BB71E00}

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\D7314F9862C648A4DB8BE2A5B47BE100

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\D7314F9862C648A4DB8BE2A5B47BE100

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{DFEAF541-F3E1-4c24-ACAC-99C30715084A}

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\TypeLib\{283C8576-0726-4DBC-9609-3F855162009A}

11. Please restart the computer and install Version 3 of Silverlight from

http://www.oldapps.com/silverlight.php

Please do not download Version 4 or later. Note that if you go to Microsoft’s official Silverlight page — or from

Netflix’s site — they will direct you to download Version 4 or later Silverlight. Version 4 is what is causing the problems.

After you take the above steps, Open Internet Explorer and go to www.netflix.com.

Choose any video to Play Instantly. The video should play without error.

Important: Once the video begins playing, right click the video, and click on Silverlight. Turn off automatic updating of Silverlight (or else you’ll be upgraded to Version 4 of Silverlight, which is what is causing the Netflix playback issues).

Done!

Fix Netflix Silverlight Errors

Definitive Windows XP Instructions for Solving Netflix’s Silverlight-related Errors