XP explorer crashing when avis preview?

[faceless]

For ages I've had this problem where explorer would crash when I was renaming avi files on the desktop. I knew it was a codec problem, but none of the codecs seemed corrupt, so I just carried on.

Then I found this:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Windows_XP_AVI_Fix.htm

And that's it sorted

[major.tom]

My natural reluctance to download and run any exe's that don't explain exactly what they're doing prompted me to do a little research. I discovered that what this does is disable the advanced avi properties in windows explorer.

You can achieve the same thing by un-registering the DLL which does this. This can be done as simply as:

Start / run / "regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll" (without the quotes)

You should then reboot your PC.

If you decide you want to get that stuff back (not sure why you'd need it, but whatever floats your boat), just remove the "/u" and reboot.

[faceless]

I'd not post something if I wasn't sure it was safe, Major... I found the stuff that you did, but decided to post the simple download fix because most people aren't comfortable editing the registry directly.

[major.tom]

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't questioning your motives. The info posted on the site you linked to was light (to put it kindly).

The commands I posted should achieve the same ends without any need to manually edit the registry (regedit) or download anything blindly.

The nature of viruses being what it is, it's wisest to err on the side of caution. Anti-virus program updates, by their very nature, arrive after malicious software is released "in the wild."