How to play an xvid avi movie file?

[caffeine]

So I have this file, and I can't seem to play it. I've been reading all this crap about codecs and I quite frankly it's Greek to me. Can someone recommend a way to play this file that's SIMPLE and doesn't involve downloading and installing six different things? I'm a complete noob when it comes to managing downloaded movie files.

When I try to play it in windows media player, a little red X pops up beside it in the playlist pane and it appears to play at first, but only makes crazy noises, and no video shows up. When I try to play it in quick time, it tells me that I need some sort of codecs, and directs me to apple's website to the page about xvid codecs. It makes no sense to me from there, though.

[john]

Try VLC player , simplicity at its best (with awkward name Video LAN , I dont know why) . whether you're on Windows or Linux .

[MuffDive69]

would be better if you explain step by step how your trying to p-lay this video and explain what happens when you try to play it

[Phantomwalker]

It's highly possible you need the Xvid Codec before you can play your file.

What I suggest to a lot of people is to pick up this:
http://www.mediacodec.org/

It's called the Windows Essentials Codec Pack.

Once you install that you should be able to watch an Xvid format file along with a ton of other formats without having to download and configure a bunch of separate codec packages.

Hope that helps!

-Phantomwalker