Troubleshooting Tips for Windows Media Player

A list of tutorials on fixing issues with Windows Media Player

By
Mark Harris
Mark Harris
Writer
  • University of Wolverhampton
Mark Harris is a former writer for Lifewire who wrote about the digital music scene and streaming music services in an easy to understand, no-nonsense manner.
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Updated on April 27, 2020
Windows Media Player 12 Logo

Microsoft

Windows Media Player (WMP) is a software program for organizing and playing music, video, audiobooks, podcasts, and other digital media. Though it has not been updated since the release of Windows Media Player 12 in 2009, the software remains popular among many Windows users.

As a deprecated program, Windows Media Player is not without its share of bugs. Errors can range from minor issues like missing album art to more serious problems like crashes and corrupted media libraries.

This guide includes tutorials and step-by-step instructions for solving some of the most common issues with Windows Media Player.

01
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How to Fix a Corrupt Windows Media Player Library

This quick fix shows you how to easily resolve a corrupt WMP library. If you have problems adding, deleting, or viewing your digital music library, then you might have a corrupt Windows Media Player database.

Luckily, this is not usually as bad as it sounds. It can be re-built in seconds following the steps in this tutorial.

02
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How to Cure Video Problems While Streaming Video

If you like to use Windows Media Player to watch streaming video, but are frustrated by interrupted playback, then you might need to tweak a few settings.

This guide includes hints and tips for improving WMP's performance and curing streaming video suffering from slow or constant video buffering, choppy playback, and other annoying symptoms.

03
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Windows Media Player Freezes in Full Screen Mode

Switching WMP to full-screen mode can sometimes cause the program to freeze. This is usually caused by an incompatibility between your graphics card and this video mode.

With this guide, we'll also show you how to use a registry hack to fix this problem in a flash.

04
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Fixing Stubborn Problems in Windows Media Player 12 by Reinstalling

There can be times when you'll need to reinstall Windows Media Player 12 to solve a problem. But where's the uninstall option?

You won't find this option in the usual place where all the other programs you've installed can easily be removed. This is because WMP 12 came packaged with Windows 7, so there's another route you'll need to take in order to uninstall it.

Follow this tutorial to see how to reinstall a fresh copy of WMP 12 the easy way.

05
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How to Add Missing Album Art (WMP 11)

Normally, Windows Media Player automatically downloads album art from the internet, but this process doesn't always work as intended and may result in blank album covers.

Rather than suffering an incomplete library, you can manually add album art in a number of ways. Read this guide on how to re-populate album images and artwork so that your media can be more easily identified at-a-glance.

06
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How to Resolve CD Ripping Error C00D10D2 (WMP 11)

Ripping CDs using WMP 11 is, on the whole, a trouble-free way of converting your audio CDs to digital music. However, if you find that you can no longer extract the audio from your discs and you keep receiving the error code C00D10D2, then follow this tutorial to get back up and ripping in no time.

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