So here is the problem. My laptop has a DVD player application on there. I did something and since then the DVD player does not have any audio. It's Win ME.

The application also has feature of capturing the screen shots and when I try to do that it gives error like this: "DVD player is unable to capture image because the decoder on your system does not support it."

I have been searching on microsoft knowledge base articles but they dont have anything that answers my query.

Any clues on how I can go about changing the decoder software to restore the one that was working previously?
Thanks in advance for all help.

Did you upgraded to Window Media Player 10 ? After Windows Media Upgrade and SP2 which was part of the same thing , some of my codecs no longer appear , also I noticed now you cant selectively use different codecs under WMP options , but can still use for ripping options.

Most probably your earlier software was not XP SP2 compatible so you seeing all this problems now , see if the application vendor site for any possible patch or update for your older dvd app

C., Just download VLC player from http://www.videolan.org and you'll never use media player again for playing any media file. You can use it to even stream your videos from one computer to another.

It's free and open source!

1.The simplest thing would have been to use System Restore. You wil find this in
Programs/accessories/system tools/system restore. But for this ( in Windows ME) you should have established a restore point at an earlier point of time. If you had done this you could easily restore your system to its earlier functionality. If not already done, you could keep this in mind at least for the future. In Windows XP, once you have configured System Restore, it automatically establishes system check points at regular intervals, which is not the case with ME. Most people do not use this excellent feature of the Windows system, as they are not aware of it. One caution though, back up your recently saved files, songs etc before you restore. Even this is not a big deal as you can undo system restore & re resore it again.

2. Install a new program, like Mr. Anuraag advises you. Easy Way, make it default for video.

3. You can check the Volume control menu, why the audio is muted?

4. If one regularly is using video/ audio streams, on quite many occasions there are these flirting commerial applications which get installed into your system & change your default settings. Check the ADD REMOVE feature from your system set up if there are programs which you have not installed & are there. If you are sure, then uninstall them.

Whats going to happen if one of those nasty unpatched security flaws in ME is misused by some trojan 'ghorha' or worm? Have you considered moving up to XP SP2 or does your machine's hardware restrict you from doing that?
Have you searched for original driver files for your DVD hardware & tried re-installing it?