Play music and video in more formats and stream it to more places with Windows Media Player 12.

Windows Media Player is a built-in multimedia player that comes with Windows. While it is a reliable and widely used application, users may encounter errors and issues from time to time. This article aims to provide guidance on troubleshooting common Windows Media Player errors.

Enable Windows 10 programs such as Windows Media Player to support activities that include the playback and recording of multimedia files that are encoded with standards-based codecs.

This article describes how to determine the version of Windows Media Player currently installed on your PC. To determine the version of Windows Media Player, start Windows Media Player, click About Windows Media Player on the Help menu in and then note the version number below the Copyright notice.

Codecs allow you to play different formats of audio and video files. Media Player supports a wide variety of codecs. Most are included out of the box; some additional codecs can be installed from the Microsoft Store.

This article lists the multimedia file types that are supported by different versions of Windows Media Player.

In some cases, the error message in Windows Media Player will provide information about which codec file that is required. The error message might also provide a link that you can click to download the codec file.

Play MP4 files in Windows by right-clicking the file and choosing what application to open it with.

This article provides reference points for information about how to troubleshoot the problems that may occur when you play media in Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Player does not support the file format or the codec of the media file you are trying to play. Some of the Windows Media Player files are missing or damaged.