Okay, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I stopped using Windows Media Player a loooonnng time ago. I switched over to something called VLC — VideoLAN Player. The C comes from “client”, but since it’s no longer a client it doesn’t really apply…but they kept the name because it was already well known.
VLC is great for playing all sorts of video files. It’s minimalist, it gets the job done, and it doesn’t take up that much space. More important, it’s far more stable than Windows Media Player. And it’s 100% free. So if you’re looking for a video player without frills that *works*, give VLC a try.
The only thing it doesn’t do is stream to, say, a PS3. Conceivably, it could be altered to stream, but it’s not supported. Right now, that’s the only thing I still use WMP for.
You can download VLC from the offical website here:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Enjoy!