re: Cannot play back the audio stream: no audio hardware is available. (Error=00040258)
Friday, November 13, 2009 at 11:46 am
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(4444 messages posted)
Andy wrote:
|Windows Media Player version 9 plays video but won't play audio
|[Cannot play back the audio stream: no audio hardware is available.
|(Error=00040258)].
|
|I have system sound and other audio players which are working fine.
You don't say if you are just now trying that version
or if you've used it for a long time and it just now failed.
WMP9 is the most troublesome media player that M$ claims will work under Win9x.
Many people can't get it to work at all.
Not only do you have to suffer M$'s poor technical abilities in their code,
in clicking the EULA you give M$ rights to do whatever they want to on your box.
In fact, the End User License Agreement that came with WMP7.1
marked a particularly nasty escalation
in M$'s **We can do whatever we want--get used to it** attitude:
cache
of http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2002/pulpit_20020704_000737.html
Media players that are superior to M$'s junk are available gratis.
These ones I point to are Free(dom) Software in that they are also libre
--no EULAs and no other M$-like nonsense.
The venerable VideoLAN Client is one exemplar:
http://google.com/search?q=VLC+GPL
The venerable Mplayer is another exemplar:
http://google.com/search?q=Mplayer+GPL
Both of these are cross-platform and they are Open Source Software
--no hidden back doors, no remote kill switches, no gotchas of any type.
Either of these makes anything from M$
(especially anything that will actually run under Win9x)
look like the sad piece of last-century junk that it is.
...and if you didn't use **ANY** M$ software at all,
you wouldn't be suffering with M$-induced situations.
This OS runs on Win9x-era boxes and you don't have to install it to test drive it;
the CD is bootable to a functional desktop.
It is VERY complete
e.g. it COMES with a software firewall, spreadsheet, and CD burning software.
cache
of http://antix.mepis.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
(Iceweasel is Firefox without the logos and such stripped out;
removing that stuff makes it slightly slimmer than the original.)
Even if you don't decide to *install* it, having this bootable disk is very useful
when your Windoze install self-destructs and needs the Humpty Dumpty treatment.
AntiX is also gratis and libre--aka Free(dom) Software.
|
All messages in this thread [show all]
 |  | re: Cannot play back the audio stream: no audio hardware is available. (Error=00040258) (gewg_: Fri, Nov 13, 2009, 11:46 am) |
| |
| |
| |
Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum
|
|
