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.

There are different ways to remove apps and programs, so if you can't find the one you're looking for, you can try another location. Note that some apps and programs are built into Windows and can't be uninstalled. You can try to repair a program first, if it's just not running correctly.

First, you'll need to download the troubleshooter. Download troubleshooter. If you see the File Download box when you start downloading, select Run or Open. The troubleshooter provides steps for you to follow. If a program isn't listed in the uninstall options, you'll be asked for that program's product code.

Get Help has troubleshooters you can run for many common scenarios. These often help resolve issues without the need to contact support. If a troubleshooter is available for your issue, select Run to start that troubleshooter.

Get support for Windows and learn about installation, updates, privacy, security and more.

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 program is called a codec. When you try to play a file that uses a codec that is not installed on your computer, the Windows Media Player tries to download the codec from a Microsoft server. If the codec is available, the Windows Media Player installs it on your computer and then plays the file.

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

The Mplayer2.exe program is located in the C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player folder. Because both players share common components such as DirectShow, and because MPlayer2 is less complex in design than Media Player 9, this is a good test for basic functionality.