Download WAV Codec for Windows Media Player to Play .wav Smoothly

While WAV is an audio format developed by Microsoft and is supposed to be supported by Windows Media Player, it may contain codecs that are incompatible with Windows Media Player, and your WAV file will not play in WMP.

Note: Codec is a piece of software to encode and decode media files. To play a specific file, the player is required to have the corresponding codec to decode the file.

Out of the box, Windows Media Player can play WAV files encoded with PCM or MS ADPCM. But if the WAV file is encoded with DTS or other codecs, it will require appropriate codecs installed on your computer for it to play. You are likely to receive a similar error message saying that “a new codec is needed to play this file”. So how to download and install WAV codec for Windows Media Player? No worries. Just follow the solution below.

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Instead of figuring out which codec your WAV files use, you are recommended to download a codec pack that includes all the essential codecs for video and audio. K-Lite Codec Pack is a popular choice that contains every codec you need to play WAV and various other formats. Most importantly, it is available for free. Follow the instructions below to install K-Lite Codec Pack on your PC to enable Windows Media Player WAV playback.

Step 1. Go to the K-Lite Codec Pack download page https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm and download a variant. The Standard variant is enough for average users.

Step 2. Click the downloaded .exe file to run the installer.

Step 3. Choose the Normal installation mode and follow the onscreen instructions to complete the installation.

Step 4. Restart your computer.

Step 5. Now, try to play your WAV audio in Windows Media Player and see if it works.

If installing WAV codec for Windows Media Player didn’t get your WAV files to play, or you are afraid that the codec pack could change your system environment, there are other solutions. The most convenient method is to get a WAV player, such as VLC Media Player. It will play any kind of WAV audio on Windows instantly.

But if you want to fix the WAV codec once and for all, you can change the WAV codec to a common format so you can avoid format incompatibility issues on Windows and other devices. This conversion can be easily done with a free media converter called WonderFox Free HD Video Converter Factory. Here are the simple steps to convert WAV files. Free download Free download the software to get started:

Step 1. Open Free HD Video Converter Factory and enter the Converter module.

Step 2. Click Add Files or drag your WAV audio files into the converter program.

Step 3. Unfold the Output Format list on the right-hand side of the program. Then, head to the Audio format section and select MP3 as the output format. You can also choose WMA if you want to play the audio on Windows operating systems.

Tips. Open the Parameters settings and you can modify the audio encoder, channel, bit rate, sample rate, and volume as you see fit.

Step 4. Press Run to start the conversion.

Now, you should have no problem playing the audio file in your Windows Media Player or other players.

Yes, Windows Media Player can play WAV files as long as it includes the corresponding WAV codecs.

Yes, you can add codecs to Windows Media Player by updating the Windows Media Player codec library or installing 3rd-party codec packs.

Windows Media Player supports a large number of mainstream formats and codecs, including AVI, ASF, WMV, MPG, MP4, MOV, AU, SND, WMA, CDA, AAC, M4A and more. For detailed info, please refer to File types supported by Windows Media Player.

That’s all we want to share about how to download WAV codec for Windows Media Player and other solutions to fix Windows Media Player not playing WAV. We hope you’ll find this post helpful. Thanks for reading. Have a nice day!