hey all.. im new here.

i've got few problems that i hope u guys can help resolve. first of all, it's regarding my video files (specifically, avi and mpg files), by default, windows media player is not able to play raw avi files and additional codec needs to be installed.

i have just formatted my laptop recently, so i had installed the appropriate codec, the problem is that, i cant view the video preview when seen in normal windows explorer, and i can only see windows media player icons as the thumbnail of the videos. the movie is able to be played by windows media player, but it's not giving any preview of the first frame of that video.

do u knw what could have caused it? i hv installed quite a few codecs since i formatted that i tink the system has got confused over the clashes of the codecs.

i have tried uninstalling the codecs and reinstalling them all back, that didnt work. i have also tried uninstalling them and installed just one, that didnt work either. i have tried disabling windows media player as the default player and enabling it back, no luck. i have also tried disabling the video thumbnail preview for windows and reenabling it, didnt work.

so now i dont know what else to do. maybe it's because the codecs have not been completely removed, cz some of the codecs didnt have uninstallers and were not listed in the "add or remove programs" list. so i cant be sure if it has been removed or not.

i dont knw the significance of this but im gonna say it anyway, just in case. fyi, i have these players installed in my laptop:- iTunes, quicktime player, and Video LAN player. could any of them have caused it?

and the codecs i installed were from http://www.free-codecs.com



my second problem is regarding my modem and portforwarding.

i have a 2-in-1 modem of four LAN ports and also wireless router. so, say my pc is connected to the internet, directly to the modem through the ethernet cable. and two other laptops are connected to the internet through the wireless router.

my question is that, do i need to portforward for all three (i mean, the PC, 1st n 2nd laptop)? if yes, how do i do that? or is it just the laptops that need portforwarding?

i have portforwarded the 1st laptop n it works fine. but when i tried to use the PC, the connection was limited as though it is blocked by a firewall or sumtin. this is particularly noticeable when running p2p torrent program on my PC. how do i portforward the PC?


well, that's all i guess, i would appreciate it if u guys could help me through with this. thanx in advance!

i've solved problem 2! but problem 1 is still my main woe.. cant seem to resolve it yet..