Windows Media Player will not run

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Windows Media Player has stopped working. I cannot start it from the start menu or quick launch and it doesn't start when attempting to run media files. I'm running Windows XP, and the problem started with WMP 10. I have tried upgrading to WMP11, but it did not help

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Windows Media Player has stopped working. I cannot start it from the start menu or quick launch and it doesn't start when attempting to run media files. I'm running Windows XP, and the problem started with WMP 10. I have tried upgrading to WMP11, but it did not help

Holy shit. Same thing happened to me last week. And I did the exact same thing that you tried to do (upgrade), but even that didn't work. I am also on Windows XP.

For right now I've switched to VLC Media Player.

Do either of you have Windows Updates enabled, out of interest?

Yes, I do. Although I may have skipped out on a couple lately. I'll have to check when I get home.

Wow. That's very weird. Can you reinstall it?

Yes, I've reinstalled it to no effect.

Have you tried uninstalling Windows media player 10 and degrading to 9 or something?

I can't find a way to uninstall 10

I have had this happen a couple times with different programs. Sometimes Windows offers help, other times, just ignores it altogether. I checked to make sure that the shortcut was going to the correct location. Even the Start Menu is a shortcut I think...
Just Right-Click the desktop icon, click Properties. Move to the Shortcut tab if it's not there already. Then click Find Target.... If that doesn't do anything, then I guess that means your shortcut is broken. Hope this can be of some help.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Windows Media Player has stopped working. I cannot start it from the start menu or quick launch and it doesn't start when attempting to run media files. I'm running Windows XP, and the problem started with WMP 10. I have tried upgrading to WMP11, but it did not help

Have you looked in your task manager to see if the process is running or not? I used to have problems where I would open something, the process would be there, but I'd never see the program. It usually had to do with heavy computer lag and such.

My first guess was that maybe the process is being blocked by something, but if the process is running, that would eliminate that theory.

So apparently, WMP doesn't work on my adminsitrator account, but it works on a user account setup for file sharing or when I leave my computer on while I'm at work. Any ideas?

Not sure how Vista works, but on XP you can control access to programs through the Start menu. Under Custom, check to see what you set media player is, and whether or not you are allowed access to it...

And apparently Winamp doesn't work anymore, either o_0

I use a program called "Your Uninstaller!" which lets you uninstall programs that do no appear in the add/remove programs list. It also scans the entire disk for unused registry entries and files and completely removes all traces of the program. Their website should have a trail version so I'd suggest trying that.

If all else fails use Windows Media Classic. It's great.

I've gotten everything to work by default in VLC, with the exception of one movie and commodore SID files.

I'm expecting that if WMP and Winamp don't work that other media players are going to behave similarly. Also, note that this is only an issue with a single user account on the machine; if someone knew what registry entries or whatever to copy from one use to the other...

Here's a really odd development: After a view a video in Media Player Classic, WMP will start propperly and I can view any video with WMP. It almost seems like some service isn't being started by WMP or something similar.

WMP still doesn't work on my computer. I said F it and am using VLC media player to run everything. I <3 it.