Resolved Windows Media Player 12 won't play .wmv files

Previous versions of Windows Media Player (WMP) were stand-alone programs, but WMP 12 is built into the Win7 OS.

I have a large library of movie/video clips in .wmv format that those previous versions of WMP (running under Win XP Pro) played perfectly, but which WMP 12 will NOT play.

My ATI Radeon 4650 graphics card has the latest drivers installed, I have run the MicrosoftFixit.WinMediaPlayer.Run program, and I've installed the most recent K-Lite Codecs pack, all to no avail.

Unfortunately, because WMP 12 is part of the Win7 OS, previous versions of WMP cannot be installed.

I realize that there are other players available, but those I've tried are less than satisfactory. WMP worked well for me in the past, and I'd like WMP 12 to work just as well. Any ideas?

 

A small WMP window opens and I get the error message shown in the attached screenshot. Clicking on the "Web Help" button opens a Microsoft page that deals primarily with playing sound files and doesn't address my problem.

 

I prefer to use Windows Media Centre for Video Files using Win7.
It also comes with the Win 7.
hawk22

 

I solved the problem quite inadvertently, while trying to do something else. Even though Microsoft has never publicized it, Win7 (as well as Vista and XP) permits a [FONT=Arial,Sans-serif]nondestructive, in-place, total reinstall of Windows 7 without damaging user accounts, data, installed programs, or system drivers. Unfortunately, the procedure is too long and detailed to describe here.

I set out to do this, in the hope that it might correct my WMP 12 problem. One of the first steps, if you have Win7 SP1 installed (as I do), but only have a pre-SP1 Win7 installation disk (as I do), is to uninstall SP1. During the uninstallation, chkdsk repaired some corrupt files. After SP1 was removed, I discovered that WMP 12 played my .wmv files perfectly.

Without going through the Win7 reinstallation process, I reinstalled SP1, and discovered that, again, WMP 12 played my .wmv files. Not only that, but it also plays the .mts files that my camera generates, and which had to be converted to the .wmv format before WMP 11 would play them under XP Pro.

It's possible that chkdsk would have corrected the WMP 12 problem right from the start, but it never occurred to me to try it.

Bottom line: problem solved.
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