I loved the K-Lite Codec Pack and CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) back in the XP days, especially while exploring MKVs and anime, but I virtually never run into a media file that VLC or MPC-HC can't play by default these days. Just drop it in and it plays.

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notpushkin 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If I understand correctly, most of what K-Lite / CCCP did was wrapping libavcodec/libavformat for the Windows APIs, so native players could use them. VLC just ships with libavcodec included, so it supports all these formats. Not sure about MPC-HC nowadays (it used to use Windows APIs, but you’d usually get it with your codec pack installer anyway).

	▲	plorkyeran 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		K-lite originally was a giant mess of stuff that gradually got pruned down as the libav-based things got better and covered more of what was needed. These days it's just mpc-hc plus lavfilters and a few incidental tools.