Windows Recovery Media not recognized

All of a sudden I can't reliably play any video media on my Win 8 64bit computer -- was working fine yesterday and AFAIK nothing (other than perhaps Windows automatic updates) changed. My first thought was to try and restore but even though I'm sure I created a restore point it tells me there isn't one. Sigh.

Okay, so then I try to perform a reset (but keeping all my files) and it tells me some files are missing and to insert my recovery media. All well and good, I actually have that (and know where it is) but when I insert the disk it tells me it is NOT a recovery disk.

It is, of course, precisely that -- a Windows 8 Recovery Media for Windows 8 Products 64 bit. I am running an official copy of Win 8 (well, 8.1, but I have no media for that since it was a free update). Yes, it's OEM (Dell) but that shouldn't make a difference. What the !#!%$! is going on here? And, more importantly, what I am to do now?

Be very careful, a reset will put your system back to a factory condition and remove all your files.

You might try running the Performance troubleshooter to see if it finds anything related to the video problem. Could it be related to sound for the video?

Is this video media a file on your system, a special type of file, on something from online and streaming?

Actually it's ANY videos I try (and these are videos that play fine on other machines -- the videos are all on an NAS that serves four other computers).

Audio files of any sort play fine in any of the programs that crash, so I don't think it's audio related.

I don't see Performance Troubleshooter anymore in Win 8.1 -- how do I find this? I thought Win 8 was supposed to automagically check for these things nowadays. In any case, when I do a search in Control Panel the only tools I see for troubleshooting are for audio -- nothing for video (which is where the problem is). As a matter of fact, doing a search for "Video" in troubleshooting returns no results.

Oh, and just to mention it -- the video card and drivers seem to be correct (no issues reported in device manager and latest driver installed).

At some point I think I'll have to bite the bullet and reinstall Windoze but I'd prefer not to go that route if I can avoid it as this is a machine I use for my business and it will take a week or more to get it back in shape for editing and creation again (plus I'm not sure that disk I tried will even DO a reinstall since Windows doesn't recognize it. Sigh).

Okay -- I *think* I know what the problem is (sort of) and how to fix it (sort of) but I'm back to my original question. Which is, how can I use my repair disk that Windows keeps rejecting?

Apparently I'm having issues with ntdll.dll faulting, and going through all those troubleshooting steps (about other causes) leads me to the only solution -- repairing Windoze. Except I can't.

So any ideas as to why my Dell supplied repair disk won't work?

Ah, nevermind. Searching the interweb brought up the sucky MS answer.

Apparently when you get the free 8.1 update from the Windoze store it will then not allow you to use any official 8.0 repair disk. There is no workaround -- once you get the free update, you are screwed without being kissed.

The good news is my wife bought a machine with 8.1 on it and now all I have to do is request Dell send me that repair disk (because, of course, Dell does not ship with any media anymore. What a world). Hopefully I can use *that* to repair this installation (assuming that the repair disk will, indeed, repair my problem).

Macs are looking better and better all the time.

OK, whatever you need. But I would have probably transferred one of the Video files from the NAS to the local hard drive and watched the file transfer to see what speeds it was showing, then see if it played from the local drive better. This would at least eliminate the NAS involvement.

When streaming from the NAS, what speed is the network showing? One thing about Windows 8 I did like was the ability to watch file transfer speeds and network transfer speeds in the Task Manager performance tab.

You could try and open an administrative command prompt and run the system file checker. It will try to replace any corrupt system files. Be aware there seems to be one file which seems to cause problems on most folks computers, but it would not effect your video. You might want to check the Performance Monitor (perfmon.msc) and Resource Monitor (resmon.msc). They can be helpful in determining if something is taking up system resources, but may depend of which version of 8.1 you are running.

sfc /scannow

If you do get a cannot repair message, run the command below.

DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

If you reset or refresh a Windows 8.1 OEM system upgraded from 8.0, it will take you back to 8.0 if it works correctly. Since 8 and 8.1 were designated as different OS versions, media from the earlier OS cannot be used to refresh or reset back to 8.1. But it looks like you have already figured that out.

No, it's NOT the NAS -- I not only played local video files, I even played them from a thumb drive (well, I *tried* to play them). Trust me, it's the computer, not the videos (because it's ANY videos, even tiny little ones I've had on the local drive for years) and it's ANY program that tries to play videos *except* for things like Premiere Pro (which I can dump the videos in and use the reference monitor to watch them just fine. I assume, however, that PP uses it's own driver system to play videos because it can play things that my computer can't, like 4K video stuff). But if I create a video file from PP and try to play it with, say Windows Media Player, I can't (although, again, PP will play it internally).

The errors are getting thrown are that dll thing, so I'm pretty sure it's corrupt (according to my net research the odds are high it's a software error in the OS). And I'm pretty sure I need to do a fix of it, with the 8.1 disc that Dell will send me. And, yes, it makes sense that you cannot repair 8.1 with 8.0, but the problem is that you cannot GET an 8.1 repair disk even though 8.1 was free through the Windoz store. That's why folks are recommended NOT to upgrade to 8.1 for free (or even that $40 thing, if they did it through the store). That's where MS is trying to screw people, because if you then have issues you'll have to reinstall Win 8.0 all over again.

I suppose the only other thing is to consider the third party video software... Could it have installed some codecs which are messing with your system? Since you say it was working fine, this could also not be a problem, unless the update changed some file essential to normal playback with your configuration. Any updates for PP?

Windows Media Player is a lower resolution player, or at least it appears to be when I stream using it. If you want to try you could update to the Windows Media Center. I have a new Dell that came with a third party DVD utilty, PowerDVD I think. But I will try playing some videos on it tomorrow to make sure they play normally. I suppose your wife's Dell is playing them normally...

I'm guessing that Adobe Premiere Pro wouldn't do anything to "mess" with Windows 8, particularly since nothing has changed with that installation for at least a year (I produce animations and videos professionally and need this stuff to work but I don't allow it to update things without my knowledge. Only Windoz does that).

Since the new version of VLC won't work either (and throws the same DLL error) but iTunes *will* work (again, most likely with proprietary in-software drivers) and since my other three computers (my wife's, my Surface Pro, and my "home" machine - the non-business one) all work fine with those videos AND with the new VLC it has to be something with my computer, and the base software appears to be the most likely culprit. Good news is that Dell shipped fast and I have the DVD of Win 8.1 in hand and will attempt a repair. At this point I doubt whether I can hurt things (but I have been surprised in the past by less likely events).