In this post we will cover how to fix the issue where Windows Media Player won’t open. I first discovered this issue when a client called in and said that he could not listen to any of his voicemail’s from his email notifications.

The Problem

So when I got on his computer, I tested to make sure that the issue was still present. Any time I would click to open the Windows Media Player application nothing would happen. It did not matter if I tried opening the voicemail file or by opening the application directly, the computer would think for a moment and then drop the process. Here is what I tried to do to fix it.

These fixes did not work for this issue:

Tested running the application from a different account on the PC
Disabled the Windows Media Player in Windows features, rebooted, and then re-enabled.

Below is what fixed it…

How To Fix: Windows Media Player Won't Open

My fix was to re-register the dll files for Windows Media Player.

STEP 1 -
Open the command prompt and run it as an administrator
1. To do this step, click on Start.
2. Now type cmd into the search box.
3. The executable should appear (cmd.exe)
4. Right click on cmd.exe and then click on Run as Administrator
STEP 2 -
Next execute the following commands and press enter after each command is typed out.

Please note that you will get a success notification after each command has processed properly.

regsvr32 vbscript.dll

regsvr32 jscript.dll

regsvr32 wmp.dll
STEP 3 -
Test the fix and open Windows Media Player!