"Jeff Richards" wrote in message
...
What version of Media Player are you using? The most likely reason is
that
the codec you downloaded is faulty, damaged, or doesn't work with your
version of media player or some other system component.

The version now is 6.4.07.1121 (after a fairly recent upgrade). If it
requires an additional codec it goes to a microsoft site and downloads it. I
saw it happen, but it took only a few seconds and I didn't pay attention.
Multimedia has never been my field of interest, so I have no idea what is
and what is not compatible. After so many releases the program should be
aware of such issues.

Cornelis Koger

There is a list of useful sites he
http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/articles/17315.aspx
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"C.D. Koger" wrote in message
...
Someone went through the trouble to send me a CD with streaming video
movies. Nero doesn't show them because they first want money for a
plug-in.
Windows media player opened the first file and said it had to download
the
proper codec. I let it do what it wanted and restarted the program.
Now it opens the file and says "an unknown error has occured" with O/K
as
the only option.

In setupmultimediavideo I see a whole list of installed codecs that
Media
Player is not aware of or cannot use. What purpose they serve I do not
know,
there is no other multimedia application on this machine. The player
itself
has 3 other codecs that seem to be unsuitable for this job, but it does
diplay streaming video's from the internet.
I rebooted to XP and tried the MP there, but it has no drivers for my
stone
age sound card and also refused to show the video clip.

Cornelis Koger