Vista - Windows Media Player Error Message

Recently I have started to recieve a message when I attempt to watch a video
using Microsoft Media Player. The message states that:

"Windows Media Player cannot access the file. The file might be in use, you
might not have access to the computer where the file is stored, or your proxy
settings might not be correct."

When this first happened I did a soft restore and that fixed the issue. Then
my computer installed updates for windows automatically and the issue started
again. So, I attempted to uninstall the updates it had installed to see if
that would fix the problem but it has not helped.

I also tried to do another soft restore, but that did not help as well. This
issue affects videos that are not only on my external hard drive but also on
my internal hard drive.

As an observation, which I do not know if this is in relation or not, but
Realplayer, Divx player, and Quicktime player do not play videos as well even
though they were able to before. If they do play the video then I get no
sound from them.

Could this be a virus? How can I reinstall WMP? I hear that you can't but
why would Microsoft provide a setup file on their site for WMP if it doesnt
even allow you to reinstall because of a "newer version already installed"?

I am having the same problem. None of my media players will work, with the same problems and everything, and I really need a fix. Please reply!

I fixed the problem by doing a complete restore of my system. My comp was due
for one anyways, so that was the only option I saw to fix it.

"DWick180" wrote:

I found the best way to fix it. Go to control panel and go to sounds. A message will pop up saying there is something interfereing and it asks if you want to disable it. If you click yes, everything works. It was a life-saver.