Windows Media Player

[teapot]

Hi
I have experienced what Microsoft tell me is a unique problem with Windows Media Player 11. For reasons best known to itself it started to go haywire and caused me to make and drink more tea than usual (which is a feat in itself!) It sent my ISP loopy too - I could play nothing and the error message blamed the RealTex Audio Driver, stating that there was no audio card. I did everything I could think off and more besides to remedy this but Media player would have none of it. Rolling back from 11, 10 and below made no difference. Another error message read; "USB Controller bandwidth exceeded: The Controller does not have enough space available for the USB Composite Device." Microsoft said the problem may be caused by the ISP modem (broadband) and I should contact them and get them to change to a network card and Ethernet. (Why after three years it should now throw a wobbly I don't know). MS suggested it could be a fault with Realtex Audio and I should uninstall and reinstall. I did and thankfully Media Player has been restored - but the alternative I was using which was brilliant in sound - Real player - went doolally as had it's big brother previously and threw up the error messages again. The fact that Real Player was using the same sound card and worked perfectly and Media Player didn't and now is - so it's the other way round baffles me and MS! I await my ISP view which will take days - if ever. The interesting thing is that since removing Real Player it seems to be behaving itself, yet it wasn't the cause of the problem originally. Has anyone else had a similar experience or am I as my friendly MS man tells me 'unique'.
Any thoughts on this will be appreciated. Time to put the kettle on. Teapot.

[giraff36]

you could try running a basic media player think its called klmcodec445 ,google it , think this runs media player classic, and will play most things when wmp and realplayer are being dificult

[jojo]

As giraff says Media Player Classic will solve your problems which sound like a corrupted codec somewhere.

This file will give you almost every codex you'll need to run just about any media:

www.filehippo.com/download_klite_codec_pack/

Real Player is stuffed full of addware, spyware and all sorts of other nasties.

Uninstall it and any other media players you have before running the k-lite file.

I have a feeling you may find it won't completely uninstall itself however.

This program will allow you to check if it's still there and remove it:

sourceforge.net/projects/st-m/

Alternatively, if you post a HiJack This file someone here can check it for you and advise.

But unless you really know your stuff, don't remove anything listed until you get it checked.

majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

[mikkh]

Yes I don't have Real player or WMP on any of my PC's - by choice
Both horrible bloated things prone to misbehave

A lot of M$ 'important' updates are fixes for WMP. I think it's more important not to have it at all myself - or the possibly worse iTunes that sneaks Quicktime garbage on your PC too

[teapot]

Many thanks for the info. The PC came with Real Player pre-loaded although I had never used it until this problem arose with MS Media Player.
Teapot.

[teapot]

Grateful thanls for the information - I will make use of it. I'm not unhappy with Media Player (or I wasn't) so if I can get it tweaked up and running how I like it that will be great.
Teapot

[teapot]

Well each to their own - I won't be using Real Player again. As for WMP I have a huge amount of stuff on there and want to recover it. I'm open to alternative players - any recommendations? Incidentally I've tried I Tunes and it was a disappointment. Thanks for the advice. teapot

[captainbrittles]

Feb 21, 2009 8:49:30 GMT jojo said:

As giraff says Media Player Classic will solve your problems which sound like a corrupted codec somewhere.

This file will give you almost every codex you'll need to run just about any media:

www.filehippo.com/download_klite_codec_pack/

I had a similar bad experience after downloading the last version of WMP only it was the quality of my sound that deteriorated, changed speakers to no avail but downloading the codecs on the above link has restored my sound to best quality. My thanks.