Problems with playback of ANY MEDIA FILES USING the Windows Media Player

[thorsak]

Hi:

ISSUE: FAILURE of the Windows Media Player to open ANY MEDIA FILE - Error Msg. 'The parameter is incorrect' is displayed instead.

After installation of the K-Lite CODEC Pack I could not play back ANY MEDIA FILE: I had no similar problems before and I checked briefly the Codecs-setting but could NOT find anything wrong. I also found the following:

- Receiving an error message 'The parameter is incorrect' whenever I'm trying to open any media (audio OR video) with the Windows Media Player by directly clicking the media file to open it. HOWEVER, the Player seems to play back any media file OK while opening it WITHIN the Player's 'LIBRARY' Section - pretty strange to me...!

- I have installed the K-Lite Codec Pack BEFORE I started having problems with the Player's play back function, HOWEVER, I then uninstalled it upon some users suggestion that the CODEC might have caused this problem - yet, this did NOT eliminate the Player's problem.

- I always have the Windows Media Player set up as the DEFAULT Program for most of the video- and audio-files, the Windows Media Player Ver. is 11.0.6002.18311 running on Pentium IV with VISTA Home Premium.

I would greatly appreciate if someone can help me with the following:

- what is the MOST COMMONLY cause of such unexpected PLAYBACK problems
- how to RESTORE the original Windows CODECs setting to restore the proper function
of the Windows Media Player.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated...!

Thanks.

[aedipuss]

oh those codec pack worshipers are not going to like to hear this one. i can't tell you how long and how many times i've told people not to install codec packs. looks like you need to do a format c: and re-install windows.

[thorsak]

Thanks aedipuss - I was afraid of that. HOWEVER, why the Windows Media Player would almost 'normally' work while using it at the 'LIBRARY' Section - any explanation ...? I'm sure there must be one...

[jman98]

My explanation is that quite simply even without codec pack issues, WMP is and has ALWAYS been a gigantic POS. (Go to urbandictionary.com and look up POS if you don't know what it means.) To give you an idea of how much of a POS it is, I have seen it refuse to play WMV files. I'm talking about normal WMV files created via Microsoft's own tools. I've seen WMP choke and die on such.

One of our long time members claims that if you install the Haali Media Splitter and do a lot of configuration stuff with it that WMP will then work fine, but I ask you if it is really reasonable to require Windows users to install and tweak a 3rd party product just to make WMP behave like a rational person thinks it should behave.

I recommend to preserve your sanity and save your time that you install either VLC or MPC HC and start using those instead of pulling out your hair over WMP. You don't need any codec packs for VLC. I don't use MPC HC so I am not sure, but I think the same is true for it.

[thorsak]

Many thanks for a detailed advice, jman98!

I have tried both suggested media players but there is another problem for me: as a musician I'm very frequently opening/playing back MIDI-files and these two players (at least the VLC for sure) for some reasons do NOT handle the MIDI-files...Also: although I agree that it is not worth it to spend time using 3rd party Utility only to make the WMP work, on the other hand - I have been using (before its malfunctioning) WMP for opening all kinds of video & audio files and it always worked for me flawlessly - which is an unexplainable surprise...! HOWEVER, I would appreciate if you could suggest to me a good and fast Player for 'instant' playback of MIDI-files which means that it could be associated in Windows-VISTA for opening any MIDI-file as the default Program.

Many thanks!

[Hoser Rob]

oh those codec pack worshipers are not going to like to hear this one. i can't tell you how long and how many times i've told people not to install codec packs...

I never had that many problems with codec packs, but I'm 100% with the above remark. That's a substantial part of the reason I use Linux now. Under Windows I almost always ran programs that were also linux apps. You just can't get away with remapping the whole damn system in linux so the windows versions very rarely do it. Opera was the only exception I saw.

BTW I don't 100% agree about mpc-hc not requiring that type of stuff, though they claim not to. There are a number of windows media programs that say they don't need 3rd party codecs but want to install them anyway. Without them they won't work on a wide variety of codecs.

Definitely try vlc, though it's not my #1 choice. Smplayer is. They're both linux ports ... I'm still using both in ubuntu. Neither need stupid 3rd party codecs. They, like the rest of the system, perform better without them. If you can't play a video on either ... and smplayer is actually better than vlc in that respect ... there's probably something wrong with the file.

I 100% totally agree that wmp is crap. I haven't used in in ages except by accident on a new windows box. All their media programs are garbage. I'm not one of those doctrinaire anti microsoft linux guys. I just don't understand why their media software is so bad.