[WMCoolmon]

Teaser
So, just today, I decided to take the plunge and go ahead and upgrade my old monitor to a Samsung 215tw. After being Wowed by the oh-so-massive screen, I decided to do what anyone concerned with large monitors would do - test it out with some fancy-schmancy HD stuff.

And that's when I realized that WMV wasn't working.

Act 1
What's more, DivX, XviD, and DVDs weren't working, either. (And still aren't)

Suffice it to say, after tweaking the BIOS, installing all the critical MS updates for Windows, updating the video card drivers, trying VLC, MPC, mplayer2, IrfanView, and PowerDVD, ensuring that the DVD player does indeed have DMA enabled, the closest I've been able to get to a DVD working is to set the priority to "Low". At that point, the sound will start stuttering out of the speakers while the screen remains solidly black. If I don't change the priority, CPU usage spikes to 100%, lagging the entire system, until I decide to kill off the program with Task Manager. I'm not sure if I've ever had DVD playback working properly on this system; for the last six months I've been using my old laptop for DVD-playing.

Act 2
After a bit of searching, I did find a handy Linux LiveCD - Geexbox. Using that, I've been able to play some DVDs. The DVD abruptly quits when it reaches the Batman Begins menu, although I suspect that's something to do with mplayer itself. It's a very handy utility and I recommend it to anyone who wants to play DVDs without requiring any kind of installed OS.

Needless to say, though, it'd be much more convenient to be able to just start up PowerDVD than reboot the computer every time I want to play a DVD. At this point, I have the feeling that it's something to do with the core windows install or the installed video codecs, or some lack of some component. When I installed Windows, IIRC, I did it by slipstreaming it and cut out a fair number of components since I expected to use it solely for gameplaying while using Linux for everything else; but I've now switched back to Windows.

Conclusion
So, does anyone have any ideas/suggestions/similar experiences?

[Fury]

You really have something hosed pretty badly there if you have that much media playback problems.

I'd say your best best is format and reinstall, but if you want to avoid that then I suggest you take a look in http://www.cccp-project.net/ Try the Insurgent tool first and when you've cleaned all the codecs out of the system, install the CCCP codec pack and reinstall your DVD-player.

When I installed Windows, IIRC, I did it by slipstreaming it and cut out a fair number of components since I expected to use it solely for gameplaying

If I'd have to guess, I'd bet this is the problem. You left out some components required for proper media playback. Going as far as customizing what Windows installs by default is totally pointless since in the end, it really does not make a difference in playing games. Whatever difference you might have noticed is nothing more than a placebo effect.

[WMCoolmon]

Well, to be honest, I was curious about how slimmed-down I could get the Windows install and how much 'fat' was in it. I felt like tweaking Windows, and figured that since all I would have installed would be a bunch of games, it would be no big deal to reinstall the OS whenever I pleased. Now, it'd be a slightly more serious deal. My error, apparently.

I opened up Insurgent and found that there are no codec packs installed that it can detect. (See screenie) It does list already-installed codecs in the 'filters' section, though, such as XviD. Should I unregister any of those? I only ask because it looks like that unregistering the wrong one could have some serious consequences - such as WAV PCM files not playing and such.

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[Fury]

I would leave directshow filters alone, if codec packs weren't detected then you at least haven't installed any bad codec packs. Go ahead and try installing CCCP.

[WMCoolmon]

Hmm, same problem still seems to occur. Thanks anyway; it may yet prove useful with further tweaking.

[Fury]

I'd just reformat and reinstall, takes less time than figuring out what the problem really is.

[IPAndrews]

So... so true.