It plays every damn obscure video format out there! To install Windows Media Player 11, Windows asks for this installation to be "validated", which I'm not willing to do. So I looked for alternatives that can play WMV files and all sorts of codecs.
Media Player Classic is good, but it seems unstable at times, and there are certain files that it mysteriously won't play.
I recall Videolan as being even more unstable a few years ago, but now the latest build seems to be allright. It will play ANY video file, well nearly everything that doesn't mandate you to install an XviD or a DivX codec. It's a veritable swiss knife.
Get this in a hurry and give up on that WMP POS
http://www.videolan.org