Windows Media Player 12 "Stutters"

WMP 12 seems to stutter continuously when playing any of my music files making them unlistenable. Some were recorded on a previous machine in .wma lossless, some on my current machine in this format. The same problem occurs with .wav files. I can play these wav files just fine with Real Player. I can also play CDs just fine with WMA. I would hate to lose all the .wma files I have. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Hope this is useful: http://evansblog.thebarrs.info/2010/09/windows-media-player-crashes.html

"Reinstalling Media Player 12 or downgrading won’t fix this specific issue.
Clearing the DRM cache will allow Media Player to start and Media Player will create a new cache. The downside to this easy fix is that you will have to reacquire all your licenses. Some of your existing media will play and others will tell you that you don’t have a valid license. In the case of media that you ripped to the computer, just re-rip it. For media that you bought on-line and then downloaded, you will have to go back to the source and hope they have a process for this.
If you happened to back up your licenses using “Manage Licenses” within Media Player, then you can restore them after you clear the cache. Unfortunately, some media publishers do not allow their licenses to be backed up."

P.S. I am also having the same problem that my wmp12 user crashes. I tried almost all the methods listed on the Microsoft support site but the link I gave you resolved a few cases.I am so frustrated and shocked to see that Microsoft doesn't bring any fix for this till now. Good luck!

 

Thank you VictoriaiiCe. This is not exactly my problem, as there is no crash of WMP. In fact, it can not only play CDs, but rip them to perfectly valid files. I can convert them with another program to .wav files and play them with another player. I can copy the .wma (lossless) file just ripped to another PC and play it on that copy of WMP. I just can't play any file from a drive properly on WMP. Also, the DRM cache is empty anyway - so "clearing" it won't help.

 

That quote was from the Microsoft website regarding cache. I see what you mean now. I researched your issue and found MANY complaints regarding WMP12 and quite a few are having the same issue and I saw that the link I provided helped fix most problems for WMP11 and WMP12. I'll look more into it. I'll get back to you soon Did you download any codecs by any chance? Try to install appropriate codec related to windows media player to resolve the issue. You can try some codec recommended by Microsoft.

 

Thanks again VictoriaiiCe. But don't spend more time on this, unless you are in the mood. The problem is no more, though I do not know precisely why. After this AMs boot, I went to the WMP options and reset them to default, then changed them to my personal preferences which I thought was the same as before. When I again tried to play stored files everything was fine. As I hadn't tried playing either before or after the default reset, I can't really be sure that this is what fixed the problem but I will just assume that I must have accidentally set some option to something wierd. Ahh, the pleasures of Windows.