Dammit, now I'm having problems with my computer! :(

Ok, so I downloaded this movie (to be more specific, I downloaded one of the new trailers for Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes). But when I played it on Windows Media Player, it wouldn't work. All I get is sound and no video. I clicked on that little exclamation mark that appears on the side of the title in the playlist. It said something about an error downloading the codec, so I figured that I probably need to get the updated version of WMP, which is version 9. So I use that search for updates button in Media Player, and it finds an update, so I download it.

2 hours later, it finishes downloading all the necessary files. I install it, then I restart the computer. I open the same file again, I get sound and video... sorta. The colors and video is fucked up beyond even being able to recognize which person is Snake or which person is a genome soldier! The sound still works though... So I figured that maybe it's just that file. So I open up another video (one that had always worked before I installed version 9 of WMP), but when I do, the colors and video is fucked up too!

Please help me! What the hell do I do to fix this?

if you are using XP, there is the GoBack feature.
if you are using win98, then restore a previous registry.
you can use a program like avicod11 to identify which codec is needed for the movie.
MOST likely, it is encoded with xvid or something that WMP cannot recognize.
Likely that others had the same problem, maybe you should ask wherever you downloaded the movie from.
my machine chokes on WMP9... but that isn't too surprising.
also, Divx/xvid movie players tend to give better results than WMP, at least in my experience.(I've seen 100's of these btw, not any MetalGear movies though)

Wow, I just DLed that trailer for MGS : TS and it looks fucking awesome!

Anyway...try using an alternative program, like winamp.com]Winamp 5 to view your movies.

It's a Divx file. Windows Media Player will not recongize it as such until you install the Divx codec and possibly not even then. Use the Divx player.

Heh, WTF? Winamp was on version 2.x for years, then it gets from 3.x to 5.x in the space of a year!

Anyway, as said download DivX. If you have problems with any other video files in the future, there are various downloadable codec packs that should help you. The K-Lite codec pack is just one.