movie problems

Yeah, use Winamp. It plays everything (pretty much) and rarely fails. I use v5.05. There are newer versions available, this one is just more stable on my system. The following link is all the old versions of the player, the next link will be for the newest.

Old Versions

New Version

Also, whilst there are a plethora of skins for it, the standard blue one that comes with it (similar to the classic media player) is most stable.

Alternatively, you could try un-installing the codecs then re-installing them again, sometimes they get screwed up and/or interfere with other installed codecs.

Also, depending on what type of file it is you are trying to play, you still might not have the correct codec. Try this site for the DivX codec.

...and (apologies for all the posts), aparrently the ffdshow filter can screw things up, if you have it un-install it. Also, this might help on your quest.