Playing .3gp audio recordings in OneNote

Hello everybody,

I'm using Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (Build 26100.2605) with the 64-bit desktop version 2411 (Build 16.0.18227.20082) of Microsoft OneNote (that's the Win32 version from the Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise, not the discontinued "OneNote for Windows 10" UWP app).

Unfortunately, Microsoft uses different codecs/formats for audio recordings on every client. Win32 OneNote uses WMA, UWP OneNote uses M4A, Android OneNote uses 3GP and iPadOS OneNote uses MP4. Normally, Win32 OneNote can only play back itself the WMA recordings. 3GP, M4A and MP4 you have to double click to play them externally in the media player app.  

Therefore I installed the K-Lite Codec Pack (18.7.0 basic). This immediately enabled seamless playback of the M4a and MP4 recordings from within OneNote. However, nothing changed with regard to the 3GP recordings created by Android OneNote. Those still may only be double clicked to open the external media player app.

Does anybody have an idea, if there is something special with the codec registration for 3GP files? Or maybe it's just a bug in OneNote?

Best regards,
Damiel

You need to ask Microsoft how their crappy software works.

Check this registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI Extensions
It should have 3gp entry with value MPEGVideo.

Thanks for your help! Yes, the registry key is there.

Just for fun, I tried a stupid trick: I downloaded the .3gp file, renamed it to .m4a and inserted this wrong named file in OneNote. The result: OneNote happily plays the fake m4a file, if the K-Lite Codec Pack is installed.

It seems, OneNote doesn't even try to play back a file that is named .3gp, regardless if there is a codec available or not.