WMP 11 no longer plays .wma file under Vista Ultimate

[Seymour Newman]

Media Player 11 under Vista Ultimate has stopped playing .wma files. The
error is "Windows Media Player is not installed properly. Please repair".
However all other files type do play without error.
Is there any way to fix this without reinstalling Vista?

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Navigate to Control Panel Default Programs Set your default
programs and click to reset Windows Media Player to open its default
program types.

 

[Seymour Newman]

Tom:

WMP is already the default player of .wma file type. If I double-click the
..wma file or start WMP first, the same error occurs.
WMP starts, opens, and then displays the message that WMP is not installed
properly in a small error box in the center of the screen.

--

Seymour

Navigate to Control Panel Default Programs Set your
default programs and click to reset Windows Media Player to open
its default program types.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

That's actually a very specific message that indicates that the file system
has likely been corrupted.

Run "cmd.exe" as administrator and in that DOS prompt run:
sfc /scannow
- that should likely help repair things.

 

[Seymour Newman]

It has started to work again. No reboots, no repair.
The only thing I did was try to attempt to play a .wma file obtained from
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316992/en-us and it worked. Then all my
previously downloaded .wma files worked.

I will speculate that it might be related to DRM.

Since this is the second time that this has happened in the last few months
( I did not have any .wma files with DRM before), I will try this routine
again if the problem develops again.

I will report back if this 'solution' solves it the next time.

Thanks for the suggestions.

--

Seymour

That's actually a very specific message that indicates that the file
system has likely been corrupted.

Run "cmd.exe" as administrator and in that DOS prompt run:
sfc /scannow
- that should likely help repair things.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
--

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

OK - if this happens again, that specific message *always* means that the
file system has been checked as being corrupt. That specific message
*never* means anything else other than the WMP files appear to not be the
WMP files.

Great job on getting yourself up and running again. =)

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

It has started to work again. No reboots, no repair.
The only thing I did was try to attempt to play a .wma file obtained from
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316992/en-us and it worked. Then all my
previously downloaded .wma files worked.

I will speculate that it might be related to DRM.

Since this is the second time that this has happened in the last few
months ( I did not have any .wma files with DRM before), I will try this
routine again if the problem develops again.

I will report back if this 'solution' solves it the next time.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Seymour Newman]

I just installed the new update (just offered) KB959772 which relates to
DRM. At the time of writing, the KB article was not available as yet.