How to Open AVI Files on Windows

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Struggling in opening the AVI file? Sometimes you will not be able to open/play avi files because of various reasons which you will get to know in the article with solutions to open the AVI files so, make sure to read the article till the end

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What Is AVI File?

Audio Video Interleave is a container file format for multimedia files on your computer. This is one of the most famous file formats used in computers for playing multimedia. This was introduced by Microsoft in the early 1990s for Windows to play multimedia files. Some of the most important file formats for multimedia files include AVI files. However, you may find it difficult to play AVI files on Windows at times.

Why do some AVI Files Not Play

Sometimes, AVI files dont play because of many reasons which are mentioned below:

This issue arises due to a number of reasons such as movie files downloaded over the internet may contain external elements.

  •  The AVI video files might be corrupted.
  • improper transfer, viruses, and broken files 
  •  AVI file can’t be played due to dissociation between the file and the windows media player
  • These are some of the issues for not playing AVI files on a windows media player or Windows.

Windows 10 and above versions are Unable to Play AVI Files!

If you are using a Windows 10 and above version, here is what can happen when you try to open an AVI file. The Films and TV app display the following error:

“Can’t Play – This item is encoded in a format that is not supported”

you get this message when the .avi file opens with the new TV and Films application on Windows 10 and above versions. Windows makes this application a default player for media files like this.

This error can be resolved using the Windows media player. It is a player that was kept in mind when the AVI file format was introduced by Microsoft. So you can always refer to the old Windows media player and play the file. You can find Windows Media Player in the menu bar of your Windows.

 Launch the player and drag-drop the file in the player.

There is a 90% chance that a Windows media player can play your file fine. But there are exceptions when there are in the file. in such cases, the windows media player refuses to play your file. and you have to look for a different solution.

How to Open an AVI File

Open Avi Files Using the Windows media player

You can open an AVI file with the help of a windows media player

Here is how to open/play AVI files on the windows media player

  • Launch the Windows media player and press ALT – It will display the menu bar.
  • Go to Tools and select options
  • Choose the File Type tab in the Options Window
  • Check for the formats (AVI) to play with the Windows media player
  • Click on  OK

In case if you are not able to open/play the AVI file follow the next method.

Update the Windows media player to open the AVI files

Update your Windows media player to the latest version. to do this:

  • Launch the Windows media player
  • Press ALT or access the menu bar
  • Click Help and select Check for updates
  • This will check for available updates for your Windows media player. You can follow the onscreen instructions to install the updates.

[If you are trying to open AVI files on mac consider referring to the article How to open avi files on mac]

Open AVI File using Other Media players

Very rarely, you may find it too difficult to play any video file on your Windows media player. There are some very good media players that can play various file formats. You can try some good third-party applications to play your file.

The VLC media player is one of the most acclaimed media player tools that users like. This media player is fully equipped with all the file capability to play a number of file formats.

You can also try the K-Lite codec pack for the media player. This has all the codecs to play various media files.

Fix corrupted AVI files through the Remo AVI repair tool

If you are looking to repair a corrupted AVI file on Mac or Windows, you can use the Remo AVI Repair tool. Remo AVI repair software repairs corrupted videos of all video formats irrespective of the scenario.

Conclusion:

 Hope this article helped you in Opening AVI File, If you have any questions please do mention them in the comment section below.

About the Author: John Harris

With a decade of experience in data recovery, John Harris, Senior Editor at Remo Software, is your go-to specialist. His focus includes partition management, Windows solutions, and data troubleshooting, delivering insightful content that serves both users and search engines. John's expertise shines through in illuminating blog posts, untangling data loss intricacies across diverse storage platforms.…