Windows media player does not work. What to do if Windows Media Player does not work? Multimedia library and its configuration

Many users use various programs to play multimedia files. Among them are KMPlayer, Light Alloy, Avi Player and many others. However, there are times when you can only open a file with Windows Media Player, which does not work and does not start. What to do in such cases and how to fix the problem?

How to configure Windows Media Player?

The first and easiest way to solve the problem is to uninstall and reinstall the player. To do this, just open the “Control Panel”, go to the “Programs” section and click “Uninstall a program”.

Having selected the player from the list, click “Delete” and restart the PC.

However, you can use the second method. Press the key combination “Win+R”. The Run service window appears. Enter “regsvr32 jscript.dll” to register the .dll file.

If the command completes successfully, the following notification will appear.

After completing the new registration, close all windows and restart the PC. Windows Media Player will now work.

If you have been using the Windows operating system for quite some time, then this is probably not the first time you have encountered the problem that Windows Media Player does not play music or video files. Most often, the message “Windows Media Player cannot play the file” appears when you reinstall the system or replace it with a different version. How to make the player work again - I will tell you about this later in this article.

An error in Windows Media can have various causes:

The file you are trying to play is damaged.
The file is not supported by Windows Media Player. For example, VIV files cannot be opened by the player, it does not understand them. Therefore, an error like this will occur.
Your operating system does not have the required codec required to play video of this format.
The file is missing from the disk. This sometimes happens, for example, when a shortcut to a file is on the desktop, but the file itself was previously deleted.
The player does not support this codec, which is needed to play a music or video file.

Among all the listed reasons, most often the error “Windows Media Player cannot play the file” occurs due to the absence of one or another codec. In order not to install various codec packages and other software blindly, you need to know which formats the player supports. You may simply be trying to play a file format that is not supported.

Formats and files supported by Windows Media

The player supports the following formats:

MPE, MPG, M3U, MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), MPV2, MPA, MP3, M1V.
The following formats: WAV, WAX, WM, ASF, ASX, WMV, WMA.
MIDI formats (musical instrument digital interface) RMI, MIDI, MID.
UNIX formats are SND and AU.

The player does not support AVI files that were created using MPEG4v3. These files are only supported in ASF streaming format. There is only one way to play the file and that is to re-encode it into one of the supported formats. This can be done using Windows Media Encoder.

Fixing a player error when playing a video

To make sure the file is not damaged, try playing another file with the same extension. If other files are played, it means the file that is causing the error is damaged. If other files are also causing the "Windows Media Player can't play the file" error, try reinstalling the player.

If reinstallation does not work, you will need to install a special codec package. To do this, go to https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm and select the desired package from the list. It is best to download the most complete codec package (Full), it weighs about 56 MB. To do this, scroll to the bottom of the main page and select the “Download Full” link.

In the next window, select one of the links “Mirror 1” or “Mirror 2” and download the package, and then install it on your PC.

Select one of the links to download the codec pack

If you don’t want to do this manually, you can set it in the player settings so that it independently downloads all the necessary codecs from the Internet. To do this, launch the player; it is usually located in the Start menu, in the All Programs list.

Windows Media Player in the list of programs in the Start menu

What is a codec?

A codec is a special program that can convert signals and data. In order to transmit or encrypt any stream or amount of data, it is encoded using a codec, and for playback or conversion, it is decoded. Most often, codecs are used in the field of digital video and audio.

When converting data in the codec, 2 types of compression can be used - lossless and lossy. Almost all audio and video codecs use a lossy compression method. This makes it possible to reduce the size of the final file, which is a positive point for storing this data. But still, this method leads to a loss of quality during playback. Audio codecs have a good property - they can be configured in such a way that the loss of quality is practically undetectable by the human ear. You need to know this to fix “Windows Media Player can’t play the file.”

If the loss of quality is unacceptable, use another compression method - lossless. This can be used in cases where subsequent editing of the file is planned, otherwise the lossy quality of the primary file will deteriorate significantly each time it is saved.

If we talk about codecs in simple terms, then these are intermediary programs between us and the computer. If you encounter an issue where Windows Media Player won't play files, the first thing you can do is install a codec pack.

Many people think that Windows Media Player is gradually losing its popularity, but this is not entirely true. There have been so many updates and additions to the player lately that you can completely customize it to your liking. While playing various types of files, you can change the player skin and install various add-ons. While the player has always been a core component of the Windows OS, Windows Media has become a really good one in the last few years. The latest, version 12, contains a number of interesting features that will certainly interest you. We will talk about these features and much more in this article.

Player update

If you have an older version of the player installed, we strongly recommend updating it. Windows Media is completely free and always available for download on the official Microsoft website.

Automatic mode: Open Windows Media Player, press Alt, go to the Help menu, and click Check for Updates.

If you don't want to manually check for updates every time, you can enable "automatic check". To do this, follow these steps:

Step 1

Open Windows Media Player, press the Alt key, expand the Tools menu, and open Settings.

Step 2

In the “Player” tab, specify how often the player checks for updates.

First start

When you launch Windows Media Player for the first time, you need to spend a few minutes setting up the player's initial settings. They consist of several steps:

Step 1

The Windows Media Player installation wizard will appear, which at the first stage will ask you to choose which type of settings to use: recommended or custom. If you select recommended, the player will automatically set all the settings without your intervention. In this case, skip this section and move on to the next one.

If you want to configure the player yourself, select the "Custom Settings" option and click the "Next" button.

Step 2

The first to open is the Privacy Options dialog box. Check the boxes next to the items you really want to use and click Next.

Step 3

At this point, WMP will ask you if you want to add a shortcut to your desktop and Quick Launch, and will also ask you to mark it as the default. Set the required settings and click “Next”.

Step 5

At the final stage, the player will offer to set up an online store to access paid content. Select “Do not set up an online store” and click the “Finish” button.

Always remain anonymous online

When installed, Windows Media Player generates a unique ID for your computer. This identifier is used in many places, including on some web resources. Thanks to it, Windows Media Player can independently request information about media data and exchange service information. Although the developers claim that the player does not transmit any personal information, there are sometimes cases where they can track what you watch. If you do not want your player usage information to be accidentally leaked online, disable this feature. For this:

Step 1

Hold down the Alt key, then open the Tools menu and select Options.

Step 2

Go to the “Privacy” tab and uncheck the box next to “Send a unique code...”.

Update the codec

Once you have installed a new version of Windows Media Player, you will also need to install additional codecs to support certain file types. A codec is nothing more than an additional add-on for Windows Media Player that helps identify and play many file formats. We recommend installing the K-lite codec package. It alone is enough to enable support for almost all audio and video data formats. You can download it from the official website of the developer.

It is also worth enabling the option to automatically download codecs by going to the player settings and in the “Player” tab, check the “Automatically download codecs” item.

Adding artwork and visuals to the player

Covers and visuals enhance your player's experience and allow you to customize the look and feel of your player. The only problem is that you can no longer download them from the official Microsoft website, so you will have to search for covers and visualizations on the Internet.

Good afternoon Today we will talk about such a video and audio player as Windows Media Player. This player is built into the Windows system of every operating system. But a situation often arises when this player begins to act up.

This can happen for various reasons; quite often this problem occurs when the user forgets to add video codecs or drivers after reinstalling the OS. In this case, I recommend adding or updating the K-Lite Codek Pack. This is the corresponding set of codecs.

It is also advisable to add drivers to your . They are usually supplied on a DVD along with the video card. If this disk is not there, no problem. Just go to the website of your video card manufacturer and download the drivers for your model.

But quite often a situation arises when Windows Media Player does not work, no matter what you do with it. It just refuses to work. I recently also encountered this problem. Many will think: “Just think, you found a problem, you can watch the video using another player!”

This is true, now there are indeed many much more sophisticated and better quality players. But the point is that many video files are configured specifically for this player. And many users have little understanding of and use the player that comes with the operating system. Therefore, if Windows Media Player does not launch for them, this is a real problem for them.

A computer is a holistic mechanism. Everything is connected to each other, so when you solve this problem, your computer will start up faster, I was convinced of this from my own experience.

I also had this problem. I purchased one video course that ran using a similar player. At first, everything was fine with the video course. It worked great, but after the next system update, it stopped starting. The error “ole error c00dfeb” began to appear.

I also noticed that Windows Media Player does not work with this course. I saw a direct connection between the two players, so I first decided to restore the activity of the Media Player.

Whatever I did, I updated the codecs. And reinstalled the drivers for the video card. I even wanted to reinstall the system, although there is no need to rush into this, because... After reinstallation, you will have to re-configure it for yourself. This will take time. Yes, this is not the best method, although many consider it universal for solving many tasks and problems. I want to offer you a simpler method that does not require such drastic methods.

Windows Media Player does not work, how to solve the problem in two minutes

If you decide to reinstall this player, it will take you more than fifteen minutes. However, there is no guarantee that you will succeed with a bang. It will take you at least an hour to reinstall the OS, followed by restoration of all the programs you need.

Using my method, you will only spend about two minutes. If you have Windows XP, you enter the “Start” of the OS, click on the “Run” command on the right and enter the combination in the search bar - regsvr32 jscript.dll - then presses Enter. Next, enter the combination - regsvr32 vbscript.dll – followed by “Enter”.

At Windows 7 And Vista Click on “Start” and enter the same commands in the “Search programs and files” field. Enter them only in the order I indicated. After the completed operations, launch the player and your problem, “Windows Media Player does not work,” is solved!

I wish you success! Andrey Zimin 09/25/14

An anecdote in every article.