Whenever I open Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7 a message appears saying “Windows Media Player has encountered a problem and needs to close” and then closes. Because Windows Media Player is integrated into Windows 7 I cannot find a method to reinstall the program. I have tried some other media playing applications but similar problems happen – they produce an error message and do not correctly start. The computer was originally running Windows Vista but has since been upgraded to Windows 7.

It is interesting that you mention other media playing applications suffer the same problem, as this indicates that the underlying issue could be some shared component in Windows (used by Windows Media Player plus other applications performing similar functions) misbehaving. Along this line, there is a Microsoft Knowledge Base article (support.microsoft.com/kb/555494) which discusses this exact error and determines the cause to be an incorrect version of the “Wmpui.dll” registered on the computer. This article was published in 2005 (so it obviously pre-dates Windows 7) although it does not mention a version of Windows or Windows Media Player to which it relates so it could be relevant to all versions. The “Wmpui.dll” file provides audio-based functionality to programs which require these functions. When a DLL file is used on the computer it needs to be “registered” so that programs can find and use the functionality provided by this file. The Knowledge Base article discusses the possibility that the incorrect version of this file has been registered (most likely caused by some third-party program registering their own version of the file, overriding the Windows version of the file). To resolve this problem, go to the “Start” menu > “Run”. In the Run window that appears, type the following command: regsvr32 %SystemRoot%system32wmpui.dll . You should receive a confirmation message saying something like “DllRegisterServer in C:WINDOWSsystem32wmpui.dll succeeded”. At this point check whether you are now able to correctly start Windows Media Player. If you instead of the confirmation message you see something like “The specified module could not be found” then this could be normal or abnormal. In this case please contact me again and let me know whether you are running the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 7. You can find this information by going to the “Start” menu and then right-click on “Computer” and select “Properties”. In the window that appears, look underneath the “System” heading at the “System type” and this will indicate whether the operating system is 32 or 64-bit.

Should the problem not be resolved by re-registering the “Wmpui.dll” file there are unfortunately many different potential causes of this issue and each require fairly detailed troubleshooting steps. Therefore, we will need more information about the problem before delving into the potential causes of the issue. In particular, it would be useful to know which module (file) is causing Windows Media Player to crash. We can find this information in the Windows Event Viewer, which is a little known (but incredibly useful) tool for troubleshooting problems on Windows based systems. Generally when a Windows computer encounters an error or unexpected behaviour it will write an entry (or several) to the Event Viewer, essentially a log of activity which occurs on the system and its applications. This can give us much more useful information on the cause of a particular issue.

Start Windows Media Player so that it crashes with the error message, which will hopefully write an entry to the Event Viewer. Then, go to the “Start” menu and right-click on “Computer” and select “Manage”. This will open the “Computer Management” window which gives us a lot more power over various things in Windows. In the left-hand pane select “Event Viewer”. Expand the “Event Viewer” section and then expand the “Windows Logs” section. You should now see a variety of different logs – click to select “Application”. On the other side of the window all the various application log entries will be displayed. Look for an error log which pertains to Windows Media Player. Once found, select that item and details of the log entry will be displayed at the bottom of the window. This should tell you the exact module in which the error occurred. Using that information you should be able to search the internet for the error message plus this module name, which may give you much more specific results about the exact cause of the problem. However, if you still find it difficult to sift through the various information returned about the error in this module then please feel free to send me the contents of that error log entry (cut and paste the information into an email) and I will be happy to review the information and see whether I can find any useful information on the internet pertaining to the issue.