Windows Media Player comes bundled with Windows and its version 11 is capable of playing all types of different media. It is pretty useful but sometimes it becomes troublesome and throws out error messages like “Windows media player cannot find the specified file”, Windows media player failed to open files.

Windows Media Player unable to open certain files

Originally a specific file type, suffix .wm, was used with the Windows Media Player but the version 11 can play a wide variety of different types. Various small snippets of code called codec’s are installed to enable the Media Player to play different file types. If the Media Players fails to open certain files, check whether you have the right codec installed for this type of file. One can find them easily over the internet. Install the correct codec for the file type that you are trying to open. If it does not work, your PC must have got broken registry files which would need to be cleaned up.

Windows Media malfunctions after update

Many PC users encounter problems when they try to upgrade the Windows Media Player that they have installed to a later version. In such cases you can remove your Windows Media Player and install the previous version or you can go for repairing your registry files, which would fix the error permanently.

Media files are listed twice or more in the library

Moving your media file to a new location may cause this problem. It occurs when Windows Media Player makes a new entry every time instead of replacing the old library file with a new one. To fix this error you can:

• Switch off Media player
• Go to "Documents and settings/All users/Application Data/Microsoft/Media Index/"
• Delete the file named "wmplibrary.db"
• Open Windows Media Player and rescan your media files, creating a new list
• Check that your Windows operating system is functioning properly

If it does not work you would need to go for repairing your registry files by scanning your drive.