IIRC VLC on Windows uses it's own included ffmpeg libraries for decoding so you don't need to mess around with Windows codecs.

I'm in the MPC-HC gang on Windows. Just so much more practical than other players. The main selling point was that full-screen the controls go away once you move the cursor off them, it was amazing. And no waiting for subs to be processed like VLC had to back then, never turned back so don't know if that is still a thing.

I use mpv but the configuration is a big pain. Just try overriding a subtitle font in mpv, there are config files to change that don’t even exist by default and they live in different places depending on mpv version and it’s a huge mess.

I still do it because it’s lightweight and for some reason has better performance for me than VLC.

I do the same because VLC has an installer on Windows while MPV you have to manually extract from a compressed folder and then run the install script from command line

MPV.net for Windows is great.