Codec screwed up

kameronj wrote on 12/8/2003, 4:53 AM
Okay...what did I do?

I installed something, deleted something, moved something - or kicked my PC and now I can't seem to play any MPEGs in my windows media player - or play any DIVX AVIs in WMP or play the video in Vegas.

I'm not sure what I did - but I'm sure it has something to do with my Codec...but I'm not sure what I did. ANy assist/input in retrieving codecs would be appreciated.

Comments

Steve672 wrote on 12/8/2003, 6:19 AM
What error message, if any, you get when you try to play them?

Do you run Norton by any chance, every so often whe something like this happens to me I take a look at the Unprotected Bin files and end up recovering some dll or other file that somehow got deleted. I too install and ununstall several programs weekly and things end up in cyber space once in a while and this is the first place I look.

Steve
kameronj wrote on 12/8/2003, 6:30 AM
Good suggestion - but I'm also really good about clearing out deleted items (even from Nortons) so there is nothing to recover.

In my WMP I get a message that says (basically) "can't play this type of file". And I'm like....dude, it's a regular MPEG. It won't do MPEG 1 or 2 or AVI or DIVX. My divx player plays them just fine...but WMP....noooooo!

Then other times, it tries to download the codec - but errors out.

I don't get an error in Vegas - it just won't "play" the video, like it use to.

My EasyX video converter won't even recoginze any of the media to convert. So I screwed something up.

Steve672 wrote on 12/8/2003, 11:21 AM
Hmmmmmm......

You're right I think you toasted a codec or two but I can't even think what files you'd be looking for. If all else fails - and certainly you don't want to reinstall everything.. the ultimate pain in the arse - I have a recovery utility that I can send you which is very good in recovering even the deleted Norton files, but I must admit this is not a clean solution to your problem. There must be someone on the forum who has a more elegant solution.

Steve
kameronj wrote on 12/9/2003, 4:49 AM
Thanks for the suggestion Steve.

I think it may be high time I just clean off the whole system and reinstall everything. It has been a while since I've done that anyway.
sdmoore wrote on 12/9/2003, 5:05 AM
kameronj, I once had a similar problem to yours on WinXP Pro. I found a solution on the net which involved going into Add/Remove Windows Components and un-ticking "Windows Media Player". Clicking on Next made Windows go through the motions of removing it but it didn't actually do it (something to do with the fact that I had WMP 9 whereas that checkbox referred to the original version in WinXP - WMP8?). Anyway, after that I was able to play .avi & .mpg files again. Never found out what screwed it up in the first place. Maybe it's worth a try before you wipe your machine clean?

Cheers,

Scott
kameronj wrote on 12/9/2003, 7:02 AM
Scott....

Thanks a bunch.