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When using Windows Media Player (WMP) on my new Windows 8.1 laptop it won’t show images when playing MPEG movie files, so all I get is the sound. Searching online suggested that this is a known defect with Windows 8.1 and can be resolved by downloading codecs from the web. However, I’m worried about doing this as I understand there’s a risk that unwanted software will be downloaded as well. Are codecs what I need? If so, which ones and where’s a safe source to download them from?
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Yes, this is a problem for the standard version of Windows 8.1. The Pro edition includes Windows Media Center (WMC), which has the necessary codecs – so Pro users won’t experience the same problem. It’s possible to add WMC to Windows 8.1 by buying the Windows 8.1 Media Center Pack for £6.99 (www.snipca.com/17748), but this really is a needless cost. To fix your problem you could grab the free K-Lite Basic codec pack from www. snipca.com/17749.
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To avoid installing unwanted software, choose the Expert installation mode, then remove ticks from anything you don’t want installed. Alternatively, if you want to keep things really simple and safe, ditch WMP and use the VLC media player instead: it’s slicker, faster, more reliable and comes with all the codecs needed to play pretty much anything. It’s a free download from www.videolan.org.