At my wits end! Problems with mplayer32.exe and PPT 2000.

[EV17]

Hi all,

I have Office 2003 and Office 2000 installed on a Windows 2000
machine. I have a presentation that has a .wmv file embedded in a
slide. The file will play fine in Powerpoint 2003 (this is primarily
because Office 2003 is more multimedia friendly and uses Windows Media
Player 9 to play the file) but will not play in Powerpoint 2000. I had
tried the acid test of playing the file with mplayer32.exe but
continue to get the error: "A problem occurred in initializing MCI."
If it doesn't play with mplayer32.exe it will not work with PPT 2000
and sure enough I get an error when I try to play it in the
presentation.

I have tried everything I could find on the web regarding
mplayer32.exe and PPT 2000, especially the Myers Multimedia FAQ by
Austin Myers:

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00099.htm

I have made sure I have the correct video CODECS installed as well as
the correct registry settings as per the FAQ listed above. I have even
done Windows 2000 repair but all to no avail.

If anyone could provide any assistance it would be greatly
appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[Guest]

Thank you for telling us the things you already tried -- that way we're not wasting your time re-suggesting them.

You might try updating Windows so that the MCI Media Player (mplay32.exe) is also updated.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;232547 describes how. The only two other KB articles I can find when searching for the phrase Initializing MCI don't seem relevant at all.

 

[Geetesh Bajaj]

Does the error occur with all WMV files or only this particular one?

Do check up this page:

PowerPoint 2000 Movie Troubleshooter - http://snipurl.com/pp2000movietrouble

Also, which version of Windows Media Player do you have installed - 6.4, 7,
8 or 9?

This article may also help:

PowerPoint and Video - http://snipurl.com/ppvideo


--
Geetesh Bajaj, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
http://www.indezine.com
http://www.powerpointed.com

Technical Specialist, PowerPoint Live
http://www.powerpointlive.com

Thank you for telling us the things you already tried -- that way we're

not wasting your time re-suggesting them.

You might try updating Windows so that the MCI Media Player (mplay32.exe) is also updated.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;232547 describes

how. The only two other KB articles I can find when searching for the phrase
Initializing MCI don't seem relevant at all.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

Hi all,

I have Office 2003 and Office 2000 installed on a Windows 2000
machine. I have a presentation that has a .wmv file embedded in a
slide. The file will play fine in Powerpoint 2003 (this is primarily
because Office 2003 is more multimedia friendly and uses Windows Media
Player 9 to play the file) but will not play in Powerpoint 2000. I had
tried the acid test of playing the file with mplayer32.exe but
continue to get the error: "A problem occurred in initializing MCI."
If it doesn't play with mplayer32.exe it will not work with PPT 2000
and sure enough I get an error when I try to play it in the
presentation.

I have tried everything I could find on the web regarding
mplayer32.exe and PPT 2000, especially the Myers Multimedia FAQ by
Austin Myers:

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00099.htm

I have made sure I have the correct video CODECS installed as well as
the correct registry settings as per the FAQ listed above. I have even
done Windows 2000 repair but all to no avail.

If anyone could provide any assistance it would be greatly
appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[Scott Harvey]

hi,

try this.
remove windows media player 9 from your system.

go to your control panel. remove the original media player if it is
installed. reboot. reinstall the orginal media player that came with
windows 2000. then check your file. if it still does not work then
reinstall media player 9. then goto microsoft for the media player
update.

i know this sounds stupid to have to do all of this. but its because
of the modular way that mci is built, that often parts of it are over
written.

its not a codec problem or anything like that. just try the above, and
you should be running.

Regards,
Scott Harvey,
http://www.123powerpoint.com
123Powerpoint.com | PowerPoint templates, backgrounds, photo library,
fonts, background music, sound effects, and presentation services

Thank you for telling us the things you already tried -- that way we're not wasting your time re-suggesting them.

You might try updating Windows so that the MCI Media Player (mplay32.exe) is also updated.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;232547 describes how. The only two other KB articles I can find when searching for the phrase Initializing MCI don't seem relevant at all.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

Hi all,

I have Office 2003 and Office 2000 installed on a Windows 2000
machine. I have a presentation that has a .wmv file embedded in a
slide. The file will play fine in Powerpoint 2003 (this is primarily
because Office 2003 is more multimedia friendly and uses Windows Media
Player 9 to play the file) but will not play in Powerpoint 2000. I had
tried the acid test of playing the file with mplayer32.exe but
continue to get the error: "A problem occurred in initializing MCI."
If it doesn't play with mplayer32.exe it will not work with PPT 2000
and sure enough I get an error when I try to play it in the
presentation.

I have tried everything I could find on the web regarding
mplayer32.exe and PPT 2000, especially the Myers Multimedia FAQ by
Austin Myers:

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00099.htm

I have made sure I have the correct video CODECS installed as well as
the correct registry settings as per the FAQ listed above. I have even
done Windows 2000 repair but all to no avail.

If anyone could provide any assistance it would be greatly
appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[EV17]

First off, thanks guys for all your quick replies! I really appreciate
it!

Scott,

I had tried what you suggested. I uninstalled Windows Media 9 as well
as removing the Windows Media Player that came with Windows 2000
[Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs ->
Add/Remove Windows Components -> Check Windows Media Player]. I then
rebooted and then reinstalled Windows Media Player (the one that came
with Windows 2000) as well as Windows Media Player 9 and the updates
to it.

I then rebooted and tried to play the file through mplayer32.exe and
continued to get the "An error occurred initializing MCI" message
again.

However, I ran Windows Update from IE and then installed the DirectX
9.0b End-User Runtime update. After rebooting I tried opening the file
from mplayer32.exe again and then it worked flawlessly. I then ran the
presentation and the embedded .wmv file worked perfectly there too.

I was *this* close to losing it because no matter what I had tried, I
kept getting that "initializing MCI" error. It seemed to have been
this particular .wmv file because mplayer32 had no problem playing
other .wmv files. I had found an article in the MSDN website that
DirectX had updates to WM Codecs and since it was the only thing I
hadn't updated, I thought I'd give it a try. Finally it worked!

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions guys!

 

[Guest]

Thank you so much for posting back with your resolution!

I have got to make a list of all of these troubleshooting steps. I know that there's a ton of info in the multimedia tutorial on Sonia's site -- and it explains so well how PPT handles multimedia. But having some quickly-accessed troubleshooting steps will be a good addition, I think.