# Can't play videos on Windows XP **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197 "2004-01-26T18:58:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/1 "2004-01-26T18:58:43Z")
Starting about two weeks ago I have had real problems playing any kind of video on my computer (Dell, Windows -XP). The sound plays fine but not the picture, well, not always. The really wierd part is that once I can get one .mpg, .avi or whatever to run, any others will. In other words I’ll double click on xyz.mpg and Windows Media Player will start up and beging to play the file but with sound only - no video. So I’ll double click on another type of multi-media file, say abc.avi, and maybe I’ll have the same problem and maybe it will work fine. If not I’ll try some other files, or maybe open up my DivX player and try that some (same problem with DivX or any of my other multimedia players). Eventually I’ll get something to work and once that happens everything else seems to fall into place - usually, anyway, but not always. I suspesct this has something to do with a Windows upgrade I made about that time, and in particular some “NVIDIA settings” process that shows up on my system tray. Any help appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/2 "2004-01-26T23:01:29Z")
My guess is some kind of memory allocation problem, playing MPGs is always a big memory hog. Try exiting out of all of your active programs before you play your MPG. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/3 "2004-01-26T23:51:30Z")
It sounds like a codec problem. Try installing the latest [DivX](http://www.divx.com/divx/) one(the **Standard DivX Codec(FREE)** link halfway down the page). There’s also a pack you can download from [Microsoft](http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) (under **Recommended Updates** ). ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/4 "2004-01-27T01:55:19Z")
I don’t think it’s either a memory problem or a codec problem. I have this problem with .AVI, .MPG, and .WMV big and small. And if it’s a codec problem, why would it be an on-again off-again thing? ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/5 "2004-01-27T02:22:57Z")
Did you try my suggestion? Or are you just being obstinate and want some miracle solution that makes sense to you? If you want to just lay on the floor and kick your feet, you can try that too. Don’t expect the kind folks at SDMB to offer you anymore help if all you are going to answer with is, “no, that can’t be it”. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/6 "2004-01-27T02:27:00Z")
It may have something to do with overlay settings on your graphics card. See if you can turn graphics acceleration all the way up on your card. Also, which version of media player are you using? ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/7 "2004-01-27T03:41:57Z")
You could also try rolling back your video driver through Device Manager. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/8 "2004-01-27T03:58:49Z")
> [@ccwaterback](#): > > Did you try my suggestion? Or are you just being obstinate and want some miracle solution that makes sense to you? If you want to just lay on the floor and kick your feet, you can try that too. I’ve been working on this for a while and I’m not an idiot, so no, I don’t need to try every half baked idea that is offered. Obviously one of the first things I did was to shut everything down, reboot, and try running a video clean. That’s one of the first things anyone would do. I don’t post questions to “the kind folks at SDMB” without first spending some effort on answering it myself. So, no, it’s not a memory problem. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/9 "2004-01-27T06:05:08Z")
OK, if your that smart, you really don’t need my help. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/10 "2004-01-27T08:34:47Z")
Is it possible a program is screwing with the colour settings? I had a problem with getting videos to run - it turned out that none of the video programs wanted to render most videos in 16-bit colour (which I’d set it to for a game), so I had to set it back at 24-bit (the highest this thing will go to). ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/11 "2004-01-27T14:39:59Z")
> [@ccwaterback](#): > > OK, if your that smart, you really don’t need my help. Honestly, don’t be a jerk. He’s got god reasons not to think its a memory problem. Maybe you can’t help, but its no reason to be a dick about it. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/12 "2004-01-27T15:09:07Z")
First of all let me thank everyone - well, almost everyone - for their suggestions. I’ve not followed up on each one yet because of the peculiararities of this problem. 1. The problem (audio but no video) is **not consistent**. If one file doesn’t work I’ll try another perhaps with a different format (.avi vs .mpg) or perhaps on a different player; finally one will work and when I retry the files that failed earlier they now work. It’s like I need to prime the pump. 2. The problem exists in **all my media players** - Windows Media Player, DivX, ThumbsPlus, and whatever IE uses - so it’s not software specific although it could be related to some shared resource like a DLL or codec except that… 3. …I don’t know that much about codecs, but the fact that I can eventually get the files to work would tend to eliminate that - and other shared resources - as the source of the problem. It’s the inconsistency factor that argues against the more common solutions such as codecs, drivers, etc. I’m sure there’s a pattern to the behavior, but I’ll be damned if can find it, and I’m a programmer, so finding patterns to bugs is one of the things I do. Please keep the ideas coming. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/13 "2004-01-27T18:39:34Z")
Still sounds like a memory (or some kind of resource) allocation problem to me. That is, once it gets cleared up, everything seems to work. On (most newer) Windows OS you can do a CTL-ALT-DEL to bring up the Task Manager, then click the Performance tab to see your resources. You might want to give that a try before-during-after your trials and see if any obvious resource problems are revealed. Sorry about being so snippy, it was late last night and I should have been in bed. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-play-videos-on-windows-xp/226197/14 "2004-01-27T21:25:08Z")
Oh, one other thing. I was downloading all kinds of MPG players once, trying to figure out which one I liked the best. Well one or more of them really hosed up my registry and who know what else (causing odd and unpredictable problems when I tried to view an MPG). I think I finally got back to a workable system by un-installing all of the ones I had downloaded and then running Regedit.