Windows Media Player is available for Windows-based devices. Use this table to find the right version of the Player for your system. (If you've got a Mac, you can download Windows Media Components for QuickTime to play Windows Media files.)

When that happens, you might be unable to use Windows Media Player to play this particular .avi file. Resolution To resolve this problem, locate and download the required codec.

Windows 10. Windows Media Player is included with Windows 10 desktop. Note that the app no longer plays DVDs. Find Windows Media Player on your PC: Use the search box on the taskbar to search for "Windows Media Player". Read more about DVD playback options for Windows.

Windows Media Player 12 has built-in support for many popular audio and video formats. Sync music, videos, and photos, or stream media to your devices so you can enjoy your library anywhere, at home or on the road. For info about the latest version for your system, see Get Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Player is available for Windows-based devices. Use this table to find the right version of the Player for your system. (If you've got a Mac, you can download Windows Media Components for QuickTime to play Windows Media files.)

Check the file compatibility: Ensure that the media file you are trying to play is compatible with Windows Media Player. Note: Commonly supported formats include MP3, WAV, WMA, AVI, and WMV. Check for outdated or corrupted codecs: You may have a missing or outdated codec.

To properly play video (and even music files), Windows Media Player required an appropriate codec. Codecs are small programs that encode digital signals in a file or data and decode. Only in this way, the player can interpret the streams as a music or film and play correctly.

You use Windows Media Player 12 on a computer that is running Windows 7 to play some AVI files that were created by a third-party application or by third-party hardware. The AVI files include an AVI super index chunk. In this scenario, Windows Media Player 12 does not play the files correctly.

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. Movies & TV: An app that's used to play digital video. Windows Voice Recorder: An app that's used to record sounds.

A codec compresses or decompresses media files such as songs or videos. Windows Media Player and other apps use codecs to play and create media files. A codec can consist of two parts: an encoder that compresses the media file (encoding) and a decoder that decompresses the file (decoding).