Codecs+Are+Not+Automatically+Installed

Codecs Are Not Automatically Installed

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. If your Internet speed is inconsistent or slow, and/or when you play streaming multimedia files with Windows Media Player 10 they tend to start and stop haphazardly, you may wish to buffer additional content.

Depending on your configuration, Windows Media Player 10 buffers (stores locally) a small amount of online content before playing streaming media files. This lessens the chance that temporary breaks in the connection will cause breaks in the multimedia file. For example, if you buffer 5 seconds of content and a break occurs for 4 seconds, you will not notice the break since you buffered enough content to offset it. However, a 6 second break would cause a noticeable break in the multimedia. Increasing the buffer size does have a couple of drawbacks:

Multimedia files will not begin playback immediately as Windows Media Player 10 must buffer content.

Buffering increases memory and/or disk usage.

To increase the buffer size:

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 "Performance" tab.

3. Underneath "Network buffering", select the "Buffer ___ seconds of content" radio button.

4. Next to this radio button, enter your desired number of seconds Windows Media Player 10 will buffer files (up to 60).

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

Depending on your configuration, when you select certain types of multimedia files from Windows Explorer, Windows Media Player 10 will automatically open to play such content. You can configure the file types that will cause Windows Media Player 10 to open, selecting the maximum amount of file types or none at all if you have another preferred multimedia player.

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 "File Types" tab.

3. Check the file types that will cause Windows Media Player 10 to start and uncheck the others. If you wish, click the "Select All" button to cause Windows Media Player 10 to start upon opening any supported multimedia file type.

4. When done with your selections, click "OK" to close the dialog box.  