Using Vista Home Premium with SP1 installed.
Once in a while, when double-clicking on a file (wmv) or other video formats, Microsoft Media Player does not start as normally does.
The only way to get it going is by rebooting the system, then doing the same double-click, Media Player starts.
Any suggestions?

ZoneAlarm, BitDefender, Scan with Spyware Doctor, AVG, SpyBot

First of all, do you have to antivirus programs on your computer?? If so uninstall one of them.

Jim R

The problem began to occur a few weeks ago. I had the same antivirus program in the
Vista computer since February and it was not happening. I do not have multiple antivirus programs and for that reason I would not disabled the only protection that I have. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Do you get any error messages when double clicking doesn't start Media Player?

Make sure Jesus is your Saviour!

No error messages at all. Just that the Media Player does not start.

ZoneAlarm, BitDefender, Scan with Spyware Doctor, AVG, SpyBot

When it doesn't start, check Task Manager for wmplayer.exe. If it's there, click it and then click End Process. Answer Yes to the window that appears. Then try double clicking your video again.

Make sure Jesus is your Saviour!

Hi.
I know what your talking about when you say the media player don't always start.
The problem is in the vista operating system itself.
I have always had this problem, and i just bought a new computer a few months ago.
Sp1 was not installed at the time i bought the computer, but the problem was there.
After i installed Sp1 the problem was still around.

However i found a workaround solution to it.
A bit annoying problem, but i can deal with it, because there are problems bigger than this with vista :-)

First of all i just want to tell you that when you double click the wmv file and mediplayer does not seem to start, but it actually does.
It runs in the background, but it's invicible to see.

Try this :

First make sure you have a link to the mediaplayer with the mediaplayer icon on the quick start bar at the bottom left on your screen.
After you double clicked the wmv file and mediaplayer don't start, then click on the mediaplayer quick start icon.
Then mediaplayer should start again with the wmv file you selected earlier.
You will notice that the file you double clicked earlier is already running when mediaplayer opens.

Hope this works for you too, because what you described above sounds exactly like the same problem i had !