Stubborn players - HELP!

yesterday i dl'd the newest version of win med player - series 9 candidate b/c i thought it would help the problem of .asf files not wanting to run... but it didn't... in all the previous versions of wmp that i had, none of them would play .asf files EVEN THOUGH there was a check mark next to the file type in the options menu...
i even tried to open it up w/ quicktime and real player but none of them worked...
can someone please help me and tell me what i have to do?
do i need a codec? if so, where do i get it? i even tried to see if i can find something on the divx site but nothing - it had .avi help only!
this is very frustrating b/c i have LOTS of .asf files that i can't find in other formats and i need to see them. :upset:
thanks!