When you’ve been in computers as long as I have, you’re bound to have wiped your computer on average once a year. And if you’re smart about it, you’ll develop a routine and a list of must-have programs. On the media end of things, I’ve used “Vista Codec Package” ever since I first found out about it. Like the website says, “Codecs have always been a pain in the butt”. But the codecs have already been checked here for conflicts, incompatibilities and have been optimized for most systems. The package contains no media player, it simply registers codecs available for your existing media players to use. And like my beloved XBMC, it plays anything – even things that Windows Media Player doesn’t know it can play.

I’d include a picture but there’s no program to look at. But if you get it, all your video and audio needs will be well taken care of.