Windows Media Player 9 driving me nuts.

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leoblob · #1 Post by **leoblob** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:17 pm

If I double-click on a multi-media file (avi, wmv, etc.) it will launch Media Player 9 and it will play the sound fine, but there is NO video.

BUT-- if I start Media Player 9 first ("manually") and then double-click on a file, both the audio and video play fine.

If I look at task manager under both scenarios, a lot more memory is being used in the first scenario than the second.

What is going on here, and any ideas on how I can fix it? (I don't care directly about the memory usage... it's just a symptom... I just want videos to play correctly)

Thanks!

SHoTTa35 · #2 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:11 am

and i'm guessing you just don't like WMP 10 or 11 right?

Anyways, i'm sure you can juts download WMP 9 again (or wait, that was an XP only release?) and install it. If not then how about going to 10 and then uninstalling that back to 9?

Are you using any codec packs also that might have taken over WMV or AVI associations? (or partially - Like Quicktime, Real Player?)

leoblob · #3 Post by **leoblob** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:25 pm

I don't think WMP 10 or 11 are supported on WIN2K. Also, I'd rather run the "lightest" media player I can. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing WMP 9 and it made no difference. The file associations are right (no other application has taken them over).

I also have WMP 6.4 on this machine and that works perfectly. The only reason I'm even interested in a later version is that some programs (such as IE) will launch WMP to play a file, and 6.4 is so old these applications don't recognize it.

I had WMP 6.4 on the computer when I bought it, and it doesn't appear to be un-installable. Not sure that matters, since on another WIN2K machine I have both WMP 6.4 and WMP 7.1 and they co-exist fine.

#4 Post by **GomJabbar** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:37 pm

I figured you were using WMP 9 because of W2K.

See if the following is of any help.

How to troubleshoot playback in Windows Media Player 9

Windows Media Player 9 Codecs Pack

Windows Media Player: WMP mini FAQ

Reading some threads on this forum, some users seem to prefer Media Player Classic.
Media Player Classic 6.4.9

You also might want to consider trying Winamp Media Player or VLC media player.

leoblob · #5 Post by **leoblob** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 5:27 pm

OK, thanks

I will look into your excellent suggestions and post again once I've tried them.

#6 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:04 am

You should give GOM-player a chance.
It is much smaller and faster than WMP, and it includes most all of the codecs already.
http://www.gomplayer.com/main.html
After using it for a while, I found it so good that I uninstalled WMP.
I had tried both WMP10 and WMP11 but GOM beats 'em hands down.

#7 Post by **gator** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:32 am

Try VLC - it is the lightest and the best player which plays all known formats ont he erath (without having to install ANYTHING else).

http://www.videolan.org/

The Spirit of X21 · #8 Post by **The Spirit of X21** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:17 am

gator wrote:Try VLC - it is the lightest and the best player which plays all known formats ont he erath (without having to install ANYTHING else).

http://www.videolan.org/

I second. It's an awesome program that's worth much more than you pay (that is to say, nothing.)

leoblob · #9 Post by **leoblob** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:48 pm

Haven't had time to work on this much, but I did solve one significant problem... my browser (FF) not being able to launch WMP when needed. It occurred to me to examine the entries in about:config ... and I saw it was looking for WMP 7.0 (did that ever even exist?). I changed it to 6.4 (my current "front runner") and now it works fine!

Windows Media Player 9 driving me nuts.

Windows Media Player 9 driving me nuts.

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