Windows experience index update killed my video playback

[koori]

everything was fine i was able to play video normally until i updated my windows experience index after which videos will play for a few seconds losing quality as it goes until about 3 sec in when it just gives up music doesn't even get that far. the only thing i did this time was update the index. it is definitely not a hardware performance issue my cpu ram and graphics are more than adequate. this has happened before but was fixed by reinstalling windows last time though had had made a lot of changes in the relevant time frame and could not guess which caused it.
during the index update process it mentions "optimizing video decoding" which i am guessing is where it kills playback.
i would greatly appreciate any insight into my issue

update
i learned that vlc player uses its own codecs. so i tried that and everything works like it supposed to but itunes and smplyer which i prefer are broken is there a way to reinstall the standard windows codecs or reset them to default?

 

[bulletng]

I highly doubt the Windows Index is the cause of this problem. Sounds like something just got messed up or overwritten.

If you need to see a list of the Windows Media Player components and codecs installed on your computer, do the following:

On the Help menu, click About Windows Media Player.

If the Help menu is not visible, click Organize, point to Layout, and then select Show menu bar.

On the About Windows Media Player dialog box, click Technical Support Information.

Your web browser will open a page that includes information about the related binary files, codecs, filters, plug-ins, and services installed on your computer. A technical support person might be able to use this detailed information to help you troubleshoot problems on your computer.

Look at the Codecs section and post here if you want. You can try to install a codec package (that I use myself and have been for years) K-Lite Codec.

I read that there are some other methods to possibly restore default codecs, but I'm not exactly sure they will work.

Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder and Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder are default codecs.
'Vista Media Center Decoder utility' is a tool for Windows Vista but works with Windows 7 also.You may try this utility.
The MediaCenter Expert: Vista Media Center Decoder utility

or you could try the Windows Vista Media Center update process (which apparently also works in W7):

1. Close Windows Media Center

2. Click Start and type cmd in the Search programs and files box

3. Right-click cmd.exe from the Programs list and clickRun as administrator

4. Type the following command at the prompt and press Enter

start /wait %windir%\ehome\mcupdate.exe –uf

5. Wait for the command to finish, then close the command prompt window, restart Windows then restart Media Center and check for the issue

For the above my computer didn't have 'ehome' directory, but a mcupdate.exe was located within the winsxs folder:
C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_mcupdate_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.17514_none_caa43bab0a1077a3