Need Help Playing AAC (.m4a) files in Windows Media Player

Hi, I got a Xbox 360 a while ago and started streaming my music on my laptop to the 360. Well I easily got the MP3 files to stream right after having Windows Media Player 11 find and index them all. Then I realized that much of my music was missing. I realized that WMP did not find my iTunes ripped music. After looking around I even found a program that made WMP find and read all the tags in it so that ALL of my music is indexed so it appears in the Xbox but Neither the Xbox nor the WMP will play any of the files. I even downloaded the patch to allow the 360 to play unprotected AAC files. These will play when directly connected to the iPod so I know the problem is NOT the XBOX. I believe they will only play once WMP will play the files but I cannot figure out how to. I really dont want to convert ALL of the files because not only would it take alot of time but also because converting a Lossy format into another Lossy format will only make the sound quality to worsen. If any one knows how to play AAC (yes all of the files are unprotected) in WMP I would greatly appreciate it. Oh and btw Im running Windows Vista Home Basic with SP1 if that helps
Thanks in advance

 

Try installing FFDshow.

 

I have tryed that before and it did not work. I just downloaded it again but still won't. Do I need to configure it to work. When I looked at the instruction page on this site there was a screen shot of a window for setting which programs use ffdshow but i cannot find it it on the actually program. (Latest Stable release, do I need the latest beta maybe?)

 

start button/all programs/ffdhsow/audio decoder config
select Codecs on the left, and on the right, I've got AAC handled by
LIBFAAD2.

 

I think I tried that also and it did not work for some reason. I did solve the problem another way though. I downloaded the Zune Software which also works with the XBox and it plays everything fine. I plan on getting a Zune soon any ways so I think it all works out. Thanks for the help any how, I think somethings just weird with this computer because that should have worked. I even found the program list and WMPlayer was in it. I even tryed adding it again and it still didnt work.
Thanks Again