I downloaded some video two years ago and it worked fine on my windows media player, but when i took it out recently to play it again i got this message:

"Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file".

any ideas, I think i upgraded to windows media 9, also i did a reboot within the last year? but why would the CD work on my computer two years ago and not work now? also what are codecs- do i need to update them? thanks

What kind of file is it? Windows Media Player has trouble playing certain files (I've encountered this problem as well). You may need to download another media player. Generally I've had trouble with .avi files in the past. I can recommend a few good free programs if you're interested.

Here's a definition of CODEC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codecs

Good luck. :)

Gspot is a handy app for finding out what codec a video file needs.

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