Windows Media Player is the default desktop application in Windows 10. When you fresh install Windows 10, you can use this to play audio, and video files on your computer. That said, Windows Media Player doesn’t support all formats out of the box. In this post, we are sharing a list of files types supported by Windows Media Player.
File types supported by Windows Media Player
Below is a list of codecs supported by Windows Media Player 12. While Windows 10 comes preinstalled with the same version, make sure to check the version by using ALT+H key combination. Next, click on About Windows Media Player from the menu.
- Windows Media formats (.asf, .wma, .wmv, .wm)
- Windows Media Metafiles (.asx, .wax, .wvx, .wmx, wpl)
- Microsoft Digital Video Recording (.dvr-ms)
- Windows Media Download Package (.wmd)
- Audio Visual Interleave (.avi)
- Moving Pictures Experts Group (.mpg, .mpeg, .m1v, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .mpe, .m3u)
- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (.mid, .midi, .rmi)
- Audio Interchange File Format (.aif, .aifc, .aiff)
- Sun Microsystems and NeXT (.au, .snd)
- Audio for Windows (.wav)
- CD Audio Track (.cda)
- Indeo Video Technology (.ivf)
- Windows Media Player Skins (.wmz, .wms)
- QuickTime Movie file (.mov)
- MP4 Audio file (.m4a)
- MP4 Video file (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .3g2, .3gp2, .3gp, .3gpp)
- Windows audio file (.aac, .adt, .adts)
- MPEG-2 TS Video file (.m2ts)
- Free Lossless Audio Codec (.flac)
While Windows Media Player includes support for popular codecs like MP3, WMA, WMV, it doesnt have in-built support for modern formats that includes Blue-ray Disc files, and some uncommon ones like FLAC files, or FLV files.
When you try to play a format for which the codec is not available on Windows, you’ll receive a message like “A codec is required to play this file” or “Windows Media Player encountered an error.”
When you install the codecs from the internet, Windows Media Player can make use of those codecs to play unsupported formats.
