Windows media player not playing video files

Sorry if my post seems incomplete. I’m not a newbie here but will try to explain the problem as possible. I have few video files saved on my hard drive and I want to play them in Windows Media Player 11 (windows XP SP3). Whenever I try running any of these files, it only plays the audio and the screen remains black. No video on the screen appears

Meanwhile I see a message pop up in the left corner of the screen saying “acquiring codec” and after few seconds it says “Codec acquired.” But still I wont get the picture on screen.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hello LARRAJ,

You should always post your query with details to explain the problem properly. The information you given is not enough to understand like what is the file format of video files that is giving you black screen. Also can you see any codec installed in Add/Remove programs?

Ok, it’s the AVI format downloaded from a video website. And there are no codec showing up in Add and remove programs. Now what?

Thanks again.

Windows Media Player wont support AVI files by default. It requires codec to play the same. Though you see a message saying acquiring codec, WMP is not able to get the proper codec required to play the same. Anyways, you just need to download and install DivX codec to play AVI files in Windows Media Player. You can download the same from here.