Where to find Codecs and how to install them.

Question

I have a laptop that runs Windows XP Home. I have Windows Media Player 11 and I have a 300 mb .mpeg video that plays correctly. I also have a Dell Optiplex GX400 that runs Windows XP Pro. It also has WMP 11.

The same .mpeg video file that plays correctly on the laptop doesn't play correctly on the GX400. It plays the sound, but the video picture is missing.

I have already looked at the Codec files on both computers (located in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32). On the laptop there are two Codec files present (MPGVIDEO.AX and MPGAUDIO.AX) which are not present on the GX400. Since those files deal with .mpeg files, I am thinking that perhaps installing them on the GX400 would fix the problem. Where do I get those files in a format that is ready to install? There must be registry entries for them because simply copying them into the \windows\system32 folder has no effect.

Or, if anybody has any other advice for how to troubleshoot and fix my problem I would be glad to hear from you.

thanks, Snowcat

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Have you tried letting WMP go over the web to find suitable codecs?  Or you can try the KLite Codec Pack from here.

jmwills · Answer

Download a player named 'VLC Media Player'.  We have yet to find a codec it does not have.

snowcat · Answer

I installed KLite which installed Classic Media Player and that correctly plays the .mpg video that Windows Media Player would not play.  WMP still will not play the video after I installed KLite.  WMP tells me that is has found a Codec, but then it just plays the sound and does not show the video portion of the file.  At least the Classic Media Player is working right on that video.

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Glad you got it worked out.  Good luck.

Windows General

Where to find Codecs and how to install them.

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