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One girl in one port

Everything goes fine and I am able to install every device not initially recognized by Windows. I then install K-Lite codec pack and some other codecs in order to make Windows able to play several video formats, such as Divx, Mpeg, h.264 and so on. And when everything seems to be working and installed, if I open Media Center and try to play any videos, the screen will turn black just after “clicking” on the video thumbnail, while audio plays correctly and while everything indicates that the file is being played.

- Whatever the video I choose and whatever the format / container it is, the result is the same.

- Videos play fine both on Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player 10, but none plays on Media Center.

- Microsoft Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility will say that the Mpeg2 codec I have got is compatible with Media Center, but Mpeg2 won’t play on MC.

- DirectX 9 says everything is working fine.

- It doesn’t seem to be a problem about codecs, since I tried to install/uninstall several codecs (ffdshow, Cyberlink, CoreCodec…) for several videos (AVI, M2TS, MPEG…) and they will never play correctly on MC.

- I reinstalled the drivers of the graphic card and even downloaded an updated driver and nothing changes.

- I even unmounted the graphic card (an nVidia) and tried another one (an ATI) and the problem still persists: everything plays fine on whatever player, except on Media Center.

- I reinstalled the whole operating system and drivers a couple of times and nothing changes.

- I also tried another monitor without success.

- I went to the graphic card control panel and tried to alter every single setting available and still no success.

I believe that it may be a very “basic” problem (such as some kind of component missing on the operating system or something like that) because the problem persists whatever the graphic card, the monitor and the installed codecs are.

The main problem is that I don’t have a copy of the recover CD supplied by the manufacturer, so the version of the O.S. I installed is the one I managed to find, not the one originally installed on this machine.

I would be really glad if you could provide me with some help about this issue. By the way, “normal” Windows XP cannot be upgraded to Media Center Edition by just installing some kind of update, right?

I’m even considering to install Linux on this machine, but that may also make some other problems arise…

specs:
- Motherboard: P4M-915G
- Processor: Pentium IV 3,2 GHz
- Memory: 512 MB
- Chipset: Intel 915g + ICH6
- Graphic card: nVidia GeForce 8400GS PCI-Express
(CRT Monitor connected to the VGA port, not to the DVI port)
- Windows Media Center Edition 2005 + Update Rollup 2

Thanks in advance!
Really funny: I now discovered that if I insert a DVD-Video disc, Media Center plays it perfectly. If I insert a DVD-ROM with spare Mpeg-2 files, they will show as a black screen during playback…
I finally solved it by downloading and installing Windows Media Player 11. Prior to that, I had version 10.

By: Jacobox

additional info: my laptop is a Dell Vostro 1500. i am traveling on southwest airlines.

By: HINES WARD DOMINATES

internet explorer states that address not valid

same error for mozilla

firewall is also off
all other computers using windows xp can use the internet.

I am using a port able computer.

By: IMMI