How to Convert AVI to Windows Media Player to Solve Windows Media Player Won't Play AVI Issue?

The Best Way to Convert MP4 to Windows Media Player Supported Formats to Solve "Windows Media Won't Play MP4"

Jul 4, 2014, Updated by Andrew Smith

Can Windows Media Player Play AVI Files?

According to Microsoft Official Website, Windows Media Player does support playing AVI videos. If your Windows Media Player won't play AVI, two reasons cause the issue:

Reason one: Windows Media Player doesn't support the video codec in AVI file. AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) is a container format designed by Microsoft, used to wrap audio and video streams together. These audio and video streams can be compressed by various codec. During the days AVI format comes into being, WMP supports all video codecs that can be used in AVI file. After that, more and more new codecs, like Xvid, DivX, MPEG-4, are invented and used in AVI file, but WMP doesn't support them.

Reason Two: Your AVI files are corrupt. Play them on other players and devices to check if this is the reason.

The following articles will introduce two solutions to help you successfully play AVI in Windows Media Player.


Solution One: Convert AVI to Windows Media Player recognized WMV, ASF, AVI, etc

How to Convert AVI to Windows Media Player?

To play AVI files with a non-Microsoft codec in Windows Media Player, you'd better to convert AVI to Windows Media Player compatible WMV, ASF, AVI, MKV, MPG etc. Here, I strongly recommend a professional yet easy-to-handle Faasoft AVI to Windows Media Player Converter which has the feature of easily converting all kinds of AVI files to Windows Media Player recognized formats like AVI to WMV, AVI to ASF, AVI to MKV, MPG, AVI, etc with zero quality loss.

Better still, Faasoft AVI to Windows Media Player Converter is also an all-in-one video and audio converter. It supports nearly all video and audio formats like MP4, MOV, WTV, MKV, FLV, SWF, RMVB, GP, DV, OGV, RM, MXF, WebM, AVCHD, MVI, Apple ProRes, etc and MP3, WAV, DTS, 3GA, APE, AIFF, FLAC, CAF, OGG, AU, RA, AC3, M4A, M4B, QCP, VOC, SHN, etc. Then playing and editing various video and audio files in almost all players and devices like iDevice, Android, BlackBerry, Xbox, Sumsung, QuickTime, Final Cut Pro, Windows Media Player, and PowerPoint becomes more and more easily and quickly.

Steps on How to Convert AVI to Windows Media Player

Free download and install Faasoft AVI to Windows Media Player Converter. Then follow the three steps to convert AVI to Windows Media Player WMV, ASF, AVI, etc.

Step 1 Add AVI files to AVI to Windows Media Player Converter
Simply drag and drop AVI files to the main interface of AVI to Windows Media Player Converter.

Step 2 Set WMV as output format
Click "Profile" drop-down button to select "WMV Windows Media Video (*.wmv)" from "General Video" category. You also can choose other Windows Media Player popular formats form "General Video" and "HD Video" category.

Step 3 Convert AVI to Windows Media Player
Just click "Convert" button of AVI to Windows Media Player to finish AVI to Windows Media Player Conversion with high quality and fast speed.

When done, click "Open Folder" button and you'll see the converted AVI files there. Now start to play AVI in Windows Media Player.


Solution Two: Install AVI Codecs for Windows Media Player

Another way to play AVI in Windows Media Player is installing some AVI codecs for Windows Media Player.

Here is AVI codecs.

A codec compresses or decompresses media files such as songs or videos. Windows Media Player and other apps use codecs to play and create media files.

A codec can consist of two parts: an encoder that compresses the media file (encoding), and a decoder that decompresses the file (decoding). Some codecs include both parts, and other codecs only include one of them.

Now the issue of "Windows Media Player won't play AVI" is resolved with very simple method. What an amazing tour it is!