Guys thanks for your help. For my laptop I installed the K-lite codec pack and use windows media player classic. I needed to convert some files for a presentation at work for use with wndws med playr because we can't install anything on those machines. I now use Video Cleaner to convert. Unbelievably easy to use and goes to and from many formats; also does batch conversions. It's not free, but go to isohunt.com and youll be good to go.

http://www.riverpast.com/en/prod/videocleaner/index.php