Problem with Windows Media Player stopped loading.

I have set Windows Media Player as the default player for .mp3but have a problem that although WMP is on the start menu when I double clickon it or its shortcut it will just flicker and not load.
I have tried different ways to play the .mp3 files by rightclicking on a file and open it but get an error message as shown below.
How can I get WMP to load as it seems to be corrupted?

scopio said:

I have set Windows Media Player as the default player for .mp3but have a problem that although WMP is on the start menu when I double clickon it or its shortcut it will just flicker and not load.
I have tried different ways to play the .mp3 files by rightclicking on a file and open it but get an error message as shown below.
How can I get WMP to load as it seems to be corrupted?

I had an issue with WMP that was solved by removing it from the Windows Features/Media features (unchecking the box seen in your post), restarting, and then re-enabling it, and then restarting. When I then launched WMP it rebuilt its music library and everything worked correctly. You might give this process a try.

If all suggestions fail to solve the issue, install VLC player.
It is free.
It can play DVDs as well ( WMP cannot.)
It does NOT have the codecs restrictions like WMP has. It plays almost all types of formats.
It is well known and widely used.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

PJLLB said:

I had an issue with WMP that was solved by removing it from the Windows Features/Media features (unchecking the box seen in your post), restarting, and then re-enabling it, and then restarting. When I then launched WMP it rebuilt its music library and everything worked correctly. You might give this process a try.

Thanks I will try to uninstall it and reinstall it as you suggest. Thank you.

davidhk said:

If all suggestions fail to solve the issue, install VLC player.
It is free.
It can play DVDs as well ( WMP cannot.)
It does NOT have the codecs restrictions like WMP has. It plays almost all types of formats.
It is well known and widely used.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

Thanks for you suggestion. I already have VLC installed.

PJLLB said:

I had an issue with WMP that was solved by removing it from the Windows Features/Media features (unchecking the box seen in your post), restarting, and then re-enabling it, and then restarting. When I then launched WMP it rebuilt its music library and everything worked correctly. You might give this process a try.

I tried uninstalling and re-installing WMP as you suggested but it didn't work for me probably because the problem must have been with Windows itself so I had to restore from an image backup and all went well and got WMP working again. Anyway thanks again for your input.

scopio said:

I tried uninstalling and re-installing WMP as you suggested but it didn't work for me probably because the problem must have been with Windows itself so I had to restore from an image backup and all went well and got WMP working again. Anyway thanks again for your input.

System image backup and system restore are 2 valuable programs.
They save my rear end countless times.
Thank you for posting the solution.