Win7 WMP12 Broken

I work for a School District in Iowa. We have generic images that we build for use in all of our buildings; I suspect that you knew that already. ANYWAY: We have just discovered that our Base Win7 image has a pretty bad error with Windows Media Player.

The application opens itself as intended and plays audio files correctly. Unfortunately, when it tries to open ANY sort of Video file (we've tested many of both audio and video), it crashes "Windows Media Player has stopped working"

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 12.0.7601.17514
Application Timestamp: 4ce7a485
Fault Module Name: StackHash_9efc
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.17514
Fault Module Timestamp: 4ce7b96e
Exception Code: c0000374
Exception Offset: 000c37b7
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 9efc
Additional Information 2: 9efcd2094cc0023fb25102493bd9b9a7
Additional Information 3: 7988
Additional Information 4: 7988666b0c062b580a84a5737d491a70

Event Viewer Error (just one of several. They are all identical)

Faulting application name: wmplayer.exe, version: 12.0.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7a485
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7b96e
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x000c37b7
Faulting process id: 0x97c
Faulting application start time: 0x01ccccbc42938e71
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 835ed9cc-38af-11e1-886e-14feb5e160bb

My first instinct was that the codecs became corrupted, but I had reinstalled codecs and I was still recieving the afformentioned error. I had then checked permissions on all folders (just in case), and they seem to all be in order. I have tried a System File Check, system restore, as well as a virus scan (unlikely the problem) of a freshly pulled image to no avail

Turns out that there is no "reinstalling" of Windows Media Player 12. You can turn it off, which just seems to hide it, but changes nothing within the system.

When the image was first sysprepped, we had tested all filetypes again and they functioned. But just now, 3 months later, we're having problems. We have 20 different images that are possibly afflicted because they were built from that base, and rebuilding every one of those from scratch just to fix Windows Media Player would be a monumental pain in the rear.


So ultimately I have 3 questions:
-Has anyone ever seen or heard of something like this?
-Is there any way you can uninstall Windows Media Player, or at least downgrade to a previous version?
-Is there something that we are overlooking that could be the source?


ANY suggestions are appreciated. I have one minute until I go home for the weekend after struggling with this thing for two days, so I'm about ready for a cold one (or ten).

 

Create a restore point and try the fix on one computer only.
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/repair-windows-media-player-with-fix-wmp-utility

 

The office is all locked up for the weekend, but I will try that first thing Monday morning. Thanks a ton!

 

No dice. I'm going to start setting up a tent in my office, because this is somehow broken on all of our Win7 images, and they'll all need to be fixed

Anyone else have any suggestions?

 

Read zach's notes on WMP 12. He concentrates only on WMP versions.
http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html
He doesn't have too much because it is fairly new compared to the other versions.
But there might be something there that can fix this.

You might want to try this ntdll fix on the same computer you created the restore point on.
http://www.articlewritingclicks.com...ng_Module_Error_in_Windows__Fixing_Guide.html

 

So out of an act of disparity, we pulled the image to another computer, this time a Bytespeed, rather than a Dell. Surprisingly, it worked.

Somehow, Windows 7 had reverted back to the old video card drivers, which had been broken for a while. Loaded the newest drivers (which were located where Windows should have been looking for the drivers. So basically, it was an advanced case of "was it plugged in?"

Thanks a bunch for your input, though.

 

Ah, things are looking up now that you can use the video on all those computers!