Avoiding reinstalls due to codec clashes?

The most secure way to do any changes involving installs or configuration is to use software like Go Back. No matter what goes wrong, even in boot up, you can select an archived snapshot that was fine to restore to, quite trivially.

Thanks, but I looked into GoBack several months ago and discovered I couldn't/shouldn't use it, for reasons that are solid, but which I can't remember. Are there some particular installation combinations that are evil? How can they be exorcised? In 2k, can you look over installed codecs (via the sound and multimedia array) and deal with conflicts there?

So, it seems the best, maybe the only, thing to do is to do an image -- using Ghost, Drive Image, whatever -- of the OS partition before a codec install?

if you have XP you can try to use the System Restore, that one worked for me when I had to reinstall a bunch of codecs.

Hi - i just register and unregeister my codecs in zoomplayer. i dunno if thats any help to you ... anyways, you said it yourself, the most rock-solid solution to that kind of problem ( altho a little slow in some cases ) is to make a drive image beforehand and restore if necessary.

Zoomplayer? 

I went to the Zoomplayer site, but from their product description I didn't see any reference to an ability to track codecs. Can you say more about how this? An alternative to re-imaging would be a good thing.

Zoomplayer has the option to register/unregister any filter it knows about. It just searches for the filter's file name on all hard drives and does either a regsvr32 /s or regsvr32 /s /u. This is useful because you don't have to go into the sound and multimedia array to unregister and can re-register any filter you have un-registered. I have never had a filter combination cause problems that couldn't be fixed by unregistering the recently installed codec (with the exception of the NIMO codec packs - though that might have been due to me not knowing the file names involved). I think if you avoid installing multiple codecs for the same thing and illegal codec packs (esp. Nimo) you should be fine.

Thanks for the explanation, I'll give it a try.