"Offering free computer help, hints, and tips to the Internet populace." Now with over 3,820 tips!

Windows Media Player 10 Misc

Codecs Are Not Automatically Installed

SUMMARY: Configure Windows Media Player 10 to attempt to download decompression algorithms used to play multimedia files.

Depending on your configuration, when trying to play certain multimedia files in Windows Media Player 10, it may warn you that a file contains an unsupported codec, or decompression algorithm, but not let you try to download an update to support such files. If that is the case, Windows Media Player 10's automatic codec downloader may be disabled.

1. Right-click on the Windows Media Player 10 title bar, choosing "Tools" - "Options".

2. When the "Options" multi-tabbed dialog box appears, select the "Player" tab.

3. Underneath "Automatic Updates", check "Download codecs automatically".

4. Click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Note that, even with this feature enabled, you must be logged onto your machine as an Administrator in order to download and install new codecs.