Solved: Win 10 - AMD graphics card(s) drivers in conflict with Windows Media Player
- I decided to install VideoBox on my Windows Vista PC.
This caused Windows Media Player to complain when attempting to play any type of video file with an error message (forget exact error message details) but this led me to revisit the VideoBox install procedure and (with reluctance) install the K-Lite Codec Pack as outlined in the supplied Install Guide.
Then, VideoBox was working fine on my Vista PC with no further issues.
- Returning back to my Win 10 PC, I re-installed (many times) VideoBox with K-Lite Codec Pack, selecting all codecs / options as possible as not sure which ones I really needed but to no avail. WMP would simply not play any video, nor throw out an error message but simply display 'swirly graphic lines'.
I turned my attention to my AMD Graphics drivers. I recall having trouble in the distant past when updating to the latest AMD software which came with the latest drivers and this caused my Windows 10 PC to simply shutdown after say 5 to 10 minutes of use. The result was that I was forced to uninstall the AMD software and put up with a nagging error message every time I booted up my machine, to this day... I was happy with this state as all the other programs I use were working fine. WMP is not a program I use to play videos so my opening post stating it was working on my WIN 10 PC was maybe incorrect.
To cut a long story short, after searching the web for ideas, I went into 'Device Manager > Display Adapters' and right clicked 'Uninstall Device' on both AMD devices. I rebooted the machine expecting the worse (loss of second monitor or possibly having to recover my PC to factory default).
Fortunately, I believe that Windows 10 restored the AMD Graphics Card device drivers automatically on reboot that originally came with my machine (I did nothing other that reboot my machine at this point).
And, I'm glad to say, all is now working fine as expected. I can play MP4, WMV, AVI and FLV formats. MPG format is not working but this is not an issue for me as I would convert (most formats) to MP4 anyway.
Thanks Steve for your reply and offer of help.