Big problems with windows update, and WMP 10

**frogbeastegg** · 10-20-2006, 11:49

I did a full reformat and reinstall because my install was over a year old and a bit unstable thanks to it crashing while I installed the drivers for my new video card. That install of windows was Not Good; I had no end of trouble, mostly thanks to microsoft's automated rubbish refusing to let me register and update my copy of the OS. That install was slow, bloated and unstable. So I did another a few days ago.

Some of my PC woes aren't solved. I tried to play a WMP format movie just now and it did the same thing as before: slowed my PC to such a crawl it takes minutes to swap from one window to another, blocked task manager from appearing, and forced me to hit the reboot button. The movie didn't get past the "Opening media" stage. I can't see what is causing this! It's been happening ever since I got the new video card (geforce 7600gt agp, replacing a radeon 9800 pro, so there shouldn't be any issues with power supply, heat etc). Any movies at all, whatever the format, whether they are downloaded or streamed off the net - they all come to the same result. I can't watch any of the M2TW preview movies, for example.

Any ideas? I have WMP 10, and updating to the horrible WMP 11 beta version makes no difference. I tried that before the reinstall and I'm not letting the horrible 'update' back on my system. I like WMP 10. Ever since its release I've been using it as my Swiss army knife media tool - it worked perfectly with everything and anything, and was as stable as could be. Never had any trouble until I got the new video card. I don't want to be using an alternative program - that would leave this issue lingering in the background, ready to strike. It was one of these crashes which messed up my troubled install of windows so badly it wouldn't boot to desktop. It would feel like leaving a bomb ticking away in the PC.

Also Windows update is not offering me SP2 because it appears to think I already have it. Worse, IE goes into not-responding mode when I try to update. I have to kill it with task manager. I use Firefox for browsing, but there's no alternative to using IE for updating.

I'm hesitant to install SP2 manually using the seperate download, as I wonder what effect it will have on the updates which have already been downloaded and installed. SP2 might have older versions of some of the files, and I might not be able to get the latest updates again.

I'm really sick of this - it's been two months since this damned box worked properly and I don't have much time to waste on it.

**frogbeastegg** · 10-20-2006, 14:11

Update: I tried the DivX player, just to see what happened. It does the same thing as WMP, save that it slowly manages to work its way through crashing the program, bringing up error reporting, sending a report, and then closing and returning the PC to a normal state. Takes it ten minutes or more to work through all that! The error report says help is available - that help turns out to be a screen telling me no specific solution is available now, but that I should install SP2. So on some level the PC knows I don't have SP2.

What the heck is going on?! :mutters:

**LeftEyeNine** · 10-21-2006, 11:21

Moved to Hard- & Software for better examination.

**tibilicus** · 10-21-2006, 11:35

Is it when you watch films in generel or when you just use the spesific programs?

**LeftEyeNine** · 10-21-2006, 11:45

Dear frog, first of all what is your video driver version ?

Secondly, I'll anyhow recommend KLite Codec Pack to be downloaded and installed, making sure that any other codecs (or packs, if any. e.g. DivX Player and its codecs) are uninstalled prior to the installation of this codec pack. The pack comes with Media Player Classic although I know that you really like WMP 10.

If after this pack you still get ultra-slaggish performance, I'll recommend you to use Crystal Player. Because once, I had the exact problem as you had that occured with all media players on my machine (WMP, MP Classic and BSPlayer) which made me think that codec pack was the problem and forced me to change it. However as soon as I realised that changing the codec pack did not mean anything, I hopelessly gave Crystal Player a try and voila! It was working like charm.

That update thing..Well I have countless times faced it. It took frustrating days to get to know that when your Windows Update somehow "clogs" during downloading the updates, it screws all your restarts and the availability of WU website through IE. It yields the exact symptoms as you describe.

First of all Go to Control Panel > Automatic Updates (sp?). When you're there you'll get 4 choices. Choos the third one saying "Notify me, but don't download automatically" (I roughly translated it. I don't know the exact definition there due to my OS being Turkish). Click Apply, OK.

Now go to your Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. And in that window there's a tickbox above saying "Show Updates" (or something similar, my OS is Turkish). When you tick it and scroll down towards letter W, you'll see "Windows XP - Software Updates". Now remove them all from your system one by one. Don't restart until you've uninstalled them all even if Win XP prompts you to.

Now take a restart, and you'll find that your OS is as it is out of the box, in seconds Windows will notify you about the available updates in the corner again, you may cancel them so as to download SP2 before anything else. When you download and install SP2 peacefully, you may start doing those minor updates again.

Good luck.

**frogbeastegg** · 10-21-2006, 19:57

The IE/updater issue is now fixed. Huzzah!

TosaInu found some topics on a nvidia forum about issues with playing files in WMP format. It's a fault with the 91.47 drivers. Whatever player is used files in that format will bring the system to its knees, and the only solution is to exit the player. Unfortunately I can't use the ones which others report as having solved their problems; they refuse to install on my system, saying there is no qualifying product. Guess this means they don't support my 7600GT. They were the 85.something drivers.

I would expect that such a major issue would prompt Nvidia to fix the driver. Having been an ATI using frog for the last three years I don't know what Nvidia's track record is for attending to such issues.