On a fresh install of Windows XP, a reader experienced the following error while trying to use their
Instant Immersion 102 Languages application:
System error: MCI error: Specified device not open or not recognized by MCI
NOTE: MCI stands for Multimedia Control Interface.
This behavior was caused by a missing AVIVideo Value Name, a REG_SZ data type, at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI32.
When I display the Value Names at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI32 using REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI32", I see the following Value Names and data values:
AVIVideo REG_SZ mciavi32.dll CDAudio REG_SZ mcicda.dll Sequencer REG_SZ mciseq.dll WaveAudio REG_SZ mciwave.dll MPEGVideo REG_SZ mciqtz32.dllNOTE: While the AVIVideo Value Name was missing from the registry, the mciavi32.dll library was present at %SystemRoot%\System32.
Opening a CMD.EXE window and running
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI32" /V AVIVideo /T REG_SZ /F /D "mciavi32.dll"
corrected the problem.