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Windows Media Player on Firefox

Steven Parker   on 17 April 2007 - 08:17 · 33 comments & 26471 views

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Have you been itching to enjoy your media content on Firefox? The Windows Media Player team put a lot of work into evolving media playback on Windows Vista through the new Media Foundation pipeline, and has also been actively monitoring feedback on WMP and playback in general. While commentary has been mainly positive for Web playback through IE, we've noticed that there's still work to be done to make Firefox users able to enjoy their media content on Windows.

We couldn't respond as quickly as we would have liked to (we had to get Windows Vista out the door), but now that it's shipped, the team has moved its attention to getting Firefox users up and running. This week we are happy to say that we have a new plug-in for Firefox that makes WMP work once again -- and even better than it did before!

It's easy to get the new Firefox plug-in -- if you navigate to a Web page today that has the embedded WMP ActiveX control, Firefox will automatically grab the new plug-in for you to install and you will once again be able to enjoy your media content

Download: Media Player Plugin for Firefox (Works with Windows XP SP2 32/x64 & Windows Vista 32/x64)
View: Windows Vista Blog

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(4 replies) #1 redeemed on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:23
Sweeet!!
Thanks for sharing. Is this for vista only?
Edit: No
#1.1 Neobond on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:24
Platform:

Windows XP SP2 (x86)
Windows XP SP2 (x64)
Windows Vista (x86)
Windows Vista (x64)
#1.2 redeemed on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:05
Thanks Neobond. I didn't check the article before replying
#1.3 +mrbester on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:22
No, it's for clients only ("Package does not support server operating systems" ) not servers. And before anyone chimes in with "you shouldn't be using a server as a workstation" there isn't a good reason why a plugin for a browser that uses a media player that you can install on a server shouldn't be able to run on Server 2K3.
#1.4 joeydoo on 17 Apr 2007 - 11:31
Yay... About time Microsoft. Now I no longer get a persistent error box showing up every time I load a page with a WMV embedded file... leading to firefox crashing if I didn't close the page.
It wasn't doing it on the alpha for Firefox version 3.0 but I went back to using 2 and it was a problem.... gone now though.
(1 reply) #2 Islander on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:33
Doesn't work though, I installed it on Firefox 2.0.0.3 (on Vista Ultimate x64) and it keeps asking me to download the WMP plugin whenever I try to access a site which requires such plugin.
#2.1 Steffan on 17 Apr 2007 - 12:29
Did you see this on the page?

Quote -
There is a known issue if you are using Firefox version 2.0.0.3 on Windows Vista with the installer failing with error code -203. To work around this simply restart Firefox (you will get a notification that Windows Vista will be changing the Firefox compatibility settings) and then install again - the second time should succeed.
#3 BriFi on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:35
Excellent! Thanks
(8 replies) #4 Albert on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:56
no thanks. i'd rather not.

there are those circumstances that i want to download a media file, rather than having an over-eagered browser started playing the file without asking, and without offering me the option to save it locally. firefox has been a godsend in these circumstances.

i mean, who the f want to turn firefox into a ie clone ???
#4.1 XY GT on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:58
Quote - (Albert said @ #4)
i mean, who the f want to turn firefox into a ie clone ???


Haha, just because MS has made a plugin for Firefox it becomes an IE clone? Nice logic there....
#4.2 Neobond on 17 Apr 2007 - 08:58
You miss the point, Microsoft realise that many people use Firefox and cannot view the embedded media files in MS format while using Firefox, they have made a plug-in so you aren't forced to switch to IE should you want to watch an embedded WMV file!

I'd say that was good customer focus..
#4.3 Jexel on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:13
Quote - (Neobond said @ #4.2)
You miss the point, Microsoft realise that many people use Firefox and cannot view the embedded media files in MS format while using Firefox, they have made a plug-in so you aren't forced to switch to IE should you want to watch an embedded WMV file!

I'd say that was good customer focus..


Opera as always misses out
#4.4 Albert on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:14
Quote - (Neobond said @ #4.2)
... Microsoft realise that many people use Firefox and cannot view the embedded media files in MS format while using Firefox ...


well actually that's exactly my point. i don't want to watch, just download. sure you can uses "save as ..." from the context menu, but why the extra hassle when you can save it directly?
#4.5 XY GT on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:16
Quote - (Albert said @ #4.4)
well actually that's exactly my point. i don't want to watch, just download. sure you can uses "save as ..." from the context menu, but why the extra hassle when you can save it directly?


Because some people dont want to download, just watch....
#4.6 Neobond on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:21
Video Downloader for Firefox will grab any embedded videos off the page, the point of an embedded video is to be able to watch it in the page, this is the same for any format that doesn't always offer a "save as" link.
#4.7 Symphony on 17 Apr 2007 - 10:11
Quote - (Neobond said @ #4.2)
You miss the point, Microsoft realise that many people use Firefox and cannot view the embedded media files in MS format while using Firefox, they have made a plug-in so you aren't forced to switch to IE should you want to watch an embedded WMV file!

I'd say that was good customer focus..


You've hit the nail in the head. This is a nice move from Microsoft. They don't say use IE to play the movie, rather they support your choice.
#4.8 Divide Overflow on 17 Apr 2007 - 14:55
Funny. . . Firefox was designed to be an IE clone that is better than IE. In many places the interface is deliberately similar to IE to make it easier for people to switch from IE. This, combined with a lack of the bulky and slow cross platform UI that Seamonkey comes with is why Firefox is so popular. Finally, before someone brings it up, most people don't care that it's open source or that it was not produced by Microsoft. Only fanatics care about such things.
(2 replies) #5 cpu on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:21
man... I cannot decide, which browser (IE or FF) is the best one... So, I use them both same time
#5.1 Neobond on 17 Apr 2007 - 09:23
My choice is Firefox because of its inline spell checker. It's way better than IESpell!
#5.2 +Dakkaroth on 17 Apr 2007 - 17:21
Quote - (Neobond said @ #5.1)
My choice is Firefox because of its inline spell checker. It's way better than IESpell!


AGREED. I love the spellcheck altogether really. Especially because I write a lot of articles on different forums and such.
(1 reply) #6 EnzoFX on 17 Apr 2007 - 10:43
my wmp content has always worked on firefox... i used some dll files that i had to place in the plugins folder, of the firefox installation directory.

and how is it "and even better than it did before!"?
#6.1 Julius Caro on 17 Apr 2007 - 12:01
Because before this, we needed activex on firefox, and activex is one of the things that make IE potentially insecure. I guess this new plugin doesn't use activex and lets you play things in which previously required it
#7 Julius Caro on 17 Apr 2007 - 11:59
This comes years too late... but I guess it's worth a shot
(2 replies) #8 fuzi0719 on 17 Apr 2007 - 12:50
Is this only for WMP11? I'm still using WMP10 on XP Pro SP2 and Firefox already has plugins for Windows Media files, they play in Firefox without a problem using the plugins that WMP10 already provides.

Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

File name: npdsplay.dll
Npdsplay dll

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
application/asx Media Files * Yes
video/x-ms-asf-plugin Media Files * Yes
application/x-mplayer2 Media Files * Yes
video/x-ms-asf Media Files asf,asx,* Yes
video/x-ms-wm Media Files wm,* Yes
audio/x-ms-wma Media Files wma,* Yes
audio/x-ms-wax Media Files wax,* Yes
video/x-ms-wmv Media Files wmv,* Yes
video/x-ms-wvx Media Files wvx,* Yes
Microsoft® DRM

File name: npdrmv2.dll
DRM Netscape Network Object

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
application/x-drm-v2 Network Interface Plugin nip Yes
Microsoft® DRM

File name: npwmsdrm.dll
DRM Store Netscape Plugin

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
application/x-drm Network Interface Plugin nip Yes
#8.1 dnast on 17 Apr 2007 - 18:25
Yeah, WMP has been working in my Firefox for as long as I can remember. I was thinking I might have downloaded a 3rd party plug-in the last time I reformatted, but I honestly can't remember. I know I'd be pretty annoyed with FF if I couldn't stream WMVs, so it's great that the WMP team is supporting it for those who haven't been able to do any streaming.
#8.2 fuzi0719 on 18 Apr 2007 - 03:51
Quote - (dnast said @ #8.1)
Yeah, WMP has been working in my Firefox for as long as I can remember. I was thinking I might have downloaded a 3rd party plug-in the last time I reformatted, but I honestly can't remember. I know I'd be pretty annoyed with FF if I couldn't stream WMVs, so it's great that the WMP team is supporting it for those who haven't been able to do any streaming.
It's not third party, the plugins are standard with WMP10. They're in the WMP folder, Firefox automatically looks for them in that default folder and utilizes them if found.
(2 replies) #9 Beastage on 17 Apr 2007 - 13:50
Where my opera FIX!?! damn you all
#9.1 P1R4T3 on 17 Apr 2007 - 15:19
WMP in Opera is fine.
Opera 9.2 here.
#9.2 Pallab on 17 Apr 2007 - 20:20
Quote - (Beastage said @ #9)
Where my opera FIX!?! damn you all

For Opera users : http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog/2007/04/...bility-skeleton
#10 tylerm on 17 Apr 2007 - 20:13
beware, after installing this plugin, once the installer showed the "finished" screen my computer locked up completely. I manually restarted and everytime I would try to login (or basically as windows was starting services) it would lock up completely. I has to use system restore to get my comp back in working order. it wasn't worth it, if you are having problems running wmp vids in firefox just donload the ie tab extension and go from there.
#11 Pallab on 17 Apr 2007 - 20:18
For Opera users : http://my.opera.com/hallvors/blog/2007/04/...bility-skeleton
(Thanks to Darken for posting about this in the forums).
#12 inuman on 17 Apr 2007 - 21:20
I use this Registry tweak and never had any problems with embedded media in Firefox (worked for me with WMP 10 and 11):

============================================================
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MediaPlayer ShimInclusionList FIREFOX.EXE]
============================================================
(replace empty space " " with backslash)
#13 smashguy on 17 Apr 2007 - 22:53
Thanks, I'm loving Firefox!

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