having major problems with .avi files

[ITSTHINKING]

i have xp on my computer that my fiance (the owner of this account, actually) built for me. for some reason, ever since he first put it together, every single time i click on a .avi file, explorer crashes. it just says that explorer encountered a problem and needs to close. i tried to open it with another program, but that program crashes too. i tried to burn them to a disc with a few programs, and those ended up crashing too. what could be the cause for this and how can i fix it? please help!!! thanks

 

[bashPenguin]

I had a similar issue years back, it might have something to do with thumbnail preview in Windows XP being buggy sometimes.

Try this. Open a 'cmd' prompt (Start -> run -> type in 'cmd')
Then type in

regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll

Now try to open the file again.

 

[velusip]

There's a registry hack that disables windows from pre-parsing the headers of media files to discover any detail about them. It's a handy hack, but I sort of forgot how to do it... if you find any information regarding this please post it here. I don't even remember where I found out about it.

 

[ITSTHINKING]

Just saw this posted from a while back. Apparently my wife made this thread, and your solution fixed her problem. Thanks for looking out