Windows Media Center: Playing MKV files

Although third party codecs may be installed, so that Windows Media Player plays .MKV files (for which it has not native support), this may not be enough to allow Windows Media Center to do the same.  Instead, when attempting to play .MKV files, even though the file icon appears, WMC may return an error that it cannot find the file!

Instructions abound on the internet about resolving this problem, but none were successful in resolving the issue until I tried the instructions to install Shark007's Advanced Codecs for Windows 7 & 8, along with a Registry modification, available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4LW-Ifk9WQ

Here's the info from the description:

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This tutorial will show you how to install the codecs you need to play
all forms of video including MKV files from windows and windows media center. Below are the installation packages you will need. Please only install
the ones meant for your operating system.

32bit Install Files
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32bit Shark007'ss codec pack        http://tinyurl.com/oyjpdm
32bit MKV Registry Patch               http://tinyurl.com/npdjrz

64bit Install Files
-------------------
32bit Shark007's codec pack          http://tinyurl.com/oyjpdm
64bit Shark007's x64 Components  http://tinyurl.com/68o7tq
64bit MKV Registry Patch               http://tinyurl.com/y8bbjtn

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This replaced Haali Media Splitter with another splitter, but solved the issue on my Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium installation on my Acer Aspire 8940 corei7 laptop.