Vista - Windows Media Player, streaming and Codecs

Here’s my problem.

A few months ago, I got the new Windows Vista Home Premium installed on my
Sony Vaio PC. Probably a mistake as it’s hardly any different to XP.

Anyway, since then, it’s been giving me serious grief with Windows Media
Player 11, mainly in terms of watching DVDs. Basically, it won’t play them
properly. It will sometimes let you watch the first few minutes and it then
freezes up. In fact, it pretty much locks up the media player altogether and
skipping onto fresh chapters is often not an option at all. Last night, I
thought “Ok, I’ll uninstall the damn thing and reinstall it.� But,
shockingly, my PC won’t actually let you do that. It isn’t even listed in the
Control Panel Menu as a programme available to remove, and, when you go to
Programmes and delete it from there, you’re eventually told that you “need
permission.� From who exactly? I have administrative privileges. I’m the
owner of the PC and its sole user. Microsoft take the f------g p---s. YOU
CAN’T REMOVE THE PROGRAMME. In fact, to make matters worse, when you download
a copy of Windows Media 11, I am informed that my current edition is more
up-to-date and it therefore refuses to install it.

Anyway. Yesterday, I downloaded Real Player and found this worked Ok at
playing my DVDs. But, it wouldn’t play them with any sound! God knows why. It
would play music with sound and other files....but not DVDs.

So, I was advised to download something called K-Lite Mega Codec player (or
something) which I did. Real Player worked. It also appeared to install a
programme on my machine called “Media Player 123� (or something) which is a
bit crap. Either way, my problems are now even worse! Windows media player
will no longer stream anything – If I try and stream something from a
website, I am now only given the option to download it (why?) and, whilst
Windows Media Player appears to be playing my DVDs a bit better, it still
isn’t healthy with constant freezing etc. It’s irritating me now.

I have uninstalled the K-Lite codec pack this moring...Does anybody know if
I should put it back on and what changes to the settings I should make? There
are loads on there. Remember...I’m on Vista. This whole thing is pissing me
off. Any help would be great. I just want Windows Media Player to play my
DVDs and f------g stream.

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 05:08:03 -0700, arselessjeans
<arselessjeans@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> Here’s my problem.
>
>A few months ago, I got the new Windows Vista Home Premium installed on my
>Sony Vaio PC. Probably a mistake as it’s hardly any different to XP.
>
>Anyway, since then, it’s been giving me serious grief with Windows Media
>Player 11, mainly in terms of watching DVDs. Basically, it won’t play them
>properly. It will sometimes let you watch the first few minutes and it then
>freezes up. In fact, it pretty much locks up the media player altogether and
>skipping onto fresh chapters is often not an option at all. Last night, I
>thought “Ok, I’ll uninstall the damn thing and reinstall it.” But,
>shockingly, my PC won’t actually let you do that. It isn’t even listed in the
>Control Panel Menu as a programme available to remove, and, when you go to
>Programmes and delete it from there, you’re eventually told that you “need
>permission.” From who exactly? I have administrative privileges. I’m the
>owner of the PC and its sole user. Microsoft take the f------g p---s. YOU
>CAN’T REMOVE THE PROGRAMME. In fact, to make matters worse, when you download
>a copy of Windows Media 11, I am informed that my current edition is more
>up-to-date and it therefore refuses to install it.
>
>Anyway. Yesterday, I downloaded Real Player and found this worked Ok at
>playing my DVDs. But, it wouldn’t play them with any sound! God knows why. It
>would play music with sound and other files....but not DVDs.
>
>So, I was advised to download something called K-Lite Mega Codec player (or
>something) which I did. Real Player worked. It also appeared to install a
>programme on my machine called “Media Player 123” (or something) which is a
>bit crap. Either way, my problems are now even worse! Windows media player
>will no longer stream anything – If I try and stream something from a
>website, I am now only given the option to download it (why?) and, whilst
>Windows Media Player appears to be playing my DVDs a bit better, it still
>isn’t healthy with constant freezing etc. It’s irritating me now.
>
>I have uninstalled the K-Lite codec pack this moring...Does anybody know if
>I should put it back on and what changes to the settings I should make? There
>are loads on there. Remember...I’m on Vista. This whole thing is pissing me
>off. Any help would be great. I just want Windows Media Player to play my
>DVDs and f------g stream.

What you want and what you get are two different things. Vista can't
play DVD's on it's own natively. Simple reason. To play a DVD you need
a mpeg-2 decoder commonly called a codec which are only licensed. They
aren't free which explains why Microsoft doesn't include one. However
if you have a DVD burner on your system there probably is one (DVD
player) included, the downside is what's included won't probably work
in Vista. Welcome to the real world. Common DVD player software is DVD
Player, Nero and Roxio's Easy CD line. There are lessor known bands.
Most of these packages all around $100 include many tools to handle
CD/DVD burning and also throw in DVD players and the required mpeg-2
codec.

Get rid of K-Lite and any other junk codec pack you installed. BIG
mistake and the source of all kinds of misery. Short answer, Vista
like all versions of Windows before it, gets confused with some
codecs, there's conflicts and well, you see the result. Probably best
to go back to a Restore point before you started to mess around. That
will (should anyway) flush all the junk you installed. If you must use
any codec pack, ONLY pick and choose which codecs you need, NEVER
install using the kitchen sink approach.

Download the following tools. GSpot, Video Inspector and DECCHECK. All
free, they will help you undo the mess and learn what codecs are on
your system and which are causing probable conflicts.