MPEG problems in Windows 2000

Whether using Media Player or Real Player the end result is the same so this isn't limited to one or the other.
If I select an MPEG file from a CD or hard drive and double click it, I will only get the audio - no video at all. Ditto if I try to open it from the players directly.

If I hit Play in the preview pane on the left hand side of the Explorer window, I still don't get video BUT now if I double click on the file it will work fine getting both audio and video. But this only applies to the MPEG file that I attempted to preview, not the others.

However, if I close the explorer window and re-open it to view the same file, I'm back at square one - no video.

It's happening to a Dell Latitude laptop running Win2K with 256MB of RAM. I have identically configured machines elsewhere in the building that have no problems opening these MPEG files.

 

You probably need to download the MPEG codec. I think Microsoft.com might have that.