If you get audio and
no picture, then you likely need an mpeg 2 decoder. Please note that Windows Vista and 7 Home and Starter editions *DO NOT* come with DVD software pre-installed. To fix this you can simply download and unzip
mpeg2dec into your WC4 directory. Then run register.bat (as administrator).
In some cases people with the "sound but no picture" problem were running multiple monitors. Disabling your secondary monitor may also fix this issue.
In the event you have neither picture nor audio, or the "missing movie" error, you can apply both of the above solutions, or if you want a one-step solution, codec packs such as
K-lite and
CCCP will work. Most of the codec packs include an AC3 decoder, so you don't need to install AC3 filter as well. The advantage of K-lite over CCCP is that it should make it easier to diagnose codec issues. The K-Lite Codec Tweak Tool shows all codecs available in the system and allows you to enable / disable individual codecs.
In some cases, players have been unable to get the game running no matter what codecs they install (the game simply will not initialize). In these instances the likely culprit is your
firewall software. Either disable your firewall and antivirus while first running the game or create an exception for WC4DVD.exe to solve this issue. Some player have noted that they had to even go so far as to completely remove their firewall program before it would let them install the game correctly.
There have been a few instances of people running Windows 8 getting the 'Virtual Protect' error on start-up. In this case, this should be solved by setting the compatibility mode of WC4DVD.exe to Windows 95 or 98.