We have a teacher that has a project for doing some basic film editing with windows movie maker. We loaded the avi file onto the computer and Windows is trying to install a codec but can't. I assume I need to install some type of codec pack. I'm looking for suggestions on a codec pack that I can easily deploy through a Win2003 server to WinXP clients.
Ideally, this codec pack shouldn't break anything else and be easily removed if need be.
Ideally, this codec pack shouldn't break anything else and be easily removed if need be.
If you really want to make sure you don't break anything, you shouldn't install any codec pack. Download MediaInfo and use it to analyze your .avi and see what exact codec is being used. This way you can install only the specific codec you need.
Alternately, you could use a video converter (MediaCoder works with tons of different formats and codecs) and convert the source from .avi to .wmv. This way 1) none of the student machines will need additional codecs and 2) it'll be in the format that Microsoft products prefer anyway.
Download K-Lite and throw it on a network share that is accessible from the computer accounts you want to deploy it to. Then create a startup script that runs this
\\server\share\klcodec.exe /verysilent /norestart
If you need to customize it more, simply run klcodec.exe -makeunattended to generate an unattended answer file
Link to k-lite: http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
Might want to add something to the prvious script. It wouldn't be a bad idea to check if it's already installed before installing it. This won't be perfect, but it should work on 99% of your computers:
IF NOT EXIST "C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack" \\server\share\klcodec.exe /verysilent /norestart
If you have 64 bit machines in your environment (which I don't have, so I'm winging this a bit), then it might look like this:
IF NOT EXIST "C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack" IF NOT EXIST "C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack" \\server\share\klcodec.exe /verysilent /norestart
Not pretty...I know...but it works most of the time
Rather than messing with codecs, try using VLC. Its free, and plays virtually anything.
www.videolan.org/vlc/
