Windows Media Player 12

[DELTETHISACCOUNT]

WMP 11 for Vista, WMP 10 for XP.

Installing WMP 11 on XP is one of the worst things you could do to your computer. It felt bulky and the skin didn't match at all. What was up with those white pixels in the corner of the window? Irritated the hell out of me. WMP 10 was perfect, combined with the official Royale theme, it looked beautiful. The only thing that I pray it had was Media Sharing capabilities so that we wouldn't be forced to upgrade to WMP 11, Zune, or that resource-hungry "Media Transfer" application.

[abcdefg]

What was up with those white pixels in the corner of the window? Irritated the hell out of me.

They are a carefully designed feature. They give you nice reference points to stabilize your vision when under the influence.

(read: a bug Micro$oft isn't going to fix)

[tiagosilva29]

When I'm in Windows (XP Pro 64-bit), I use VLC as a portable application, via USB pen. I never use WMP... (Not 64-bit and it didn't add much to WMP10)

[Crazysah]

WMP11 on Windows Vista 32-bit is my favorite!

[spenser.d]

I use WMP11 on XP and I love it :yes:

-Spenser

[mikee286]

wmp 11 in xp with royale noir theme looks alright but vistas wmp11 is my favorite

[Electric Jolt]

better give it a more cleaner UI WMP11 on XP so doesn't fit into XP's native UI they really need to work on that, WMP10 had it pretty good.

Microsoft at this point will not release anymore versions of Windows Media Player to Windows XP. Why would they, I mean its old now, no point in doing it. It will also teach you that Windows XP is old. Its like when Windows 7 is released with a new Windows Media Player, hopefully 12, and we all know that it goes like this, the new release of Windows comes with the new Windows Media Player while the previous release will have a download for it. So when Windows Media Player 12 is released, its going to be Windows 7 and Windows Vista. No support for Windows XP anymore once its 2 releases old, unless the people don't grow up and Microsoft feels sorry for them, then it gets an extended period of support. I don't know but from history, I am suspecting no new Windows Media Player for Windows XP. :D

[pippi123]

i don't think they will release another media player at all. the time for this locally installed media players is over. by the time windows 7 arrives, we will all have long got used to playing media files by using (desktop) silverlight.

[Dan~]

I use K-Lite Codec, which has Media Player Classic, which is just frankly awesome, very fast, all the right features for me to watch my movies in all sorts of formats.

[Crazysah]

Is there any idea or any info on WMP 12?

[etempest]

better give it a more cleaner UI WMP11 on XP so doesn't fit into XP's native UI they really need to work on that, WMP10 had it pretty good.

They not going to be any real new stuff for XP coming from MS. If WMP12 came out and they allowed it to work on xp, I bet it will be the same situation as WMP11 on XP.

[DrewJW]

Alot of torrent sites have a WMP12 knocking about, most likely a new skinned WMP 11 with a reshacked version, packed in with a virus.

[BreakingBenjamin]

Alot of torrent sites have a WMP12 knocking about, most likely a new skinned WMP 11 with a reshacked version, packed in with a virus.

Yeah it's just a skin.. it looks nice, tho. Way better than the default one, IMO.

[Ayepecks]

Way better looking than WMP11? Gotta screenshot?

[Crazysah]

Alot of torrent sites have WMP12? I doin't believe it... but can I have screenshot though?

[BreakingBenjamin]

Sure, I found this one on a torrent site:

[params]

Just to confirm - the alleged WMP12 Beta 1 on all the torrent sites is definitely a fake and I have seen reports that it has a nasty payload.

I had a look inside the package and it's just a hacked wmp11 designed to make it look like v12 with a file inside called wmp12.exe which just installs an old file from wmp10 (probably for skin compatability or something)

The skin itself I think is the energy them one for wmp (there is also an energy.exe file within the package).

http://randomelements.me.uk/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=670

[Crazysah]

The skin is not even that great. I don't know why torrent sites would bother with this...

[Sean B. Veteran]

I can assure you, the screenshot that BreakingBenjamin posted is not anything like WMP12 will look like. However, the status bar icon in the systray is similar to what I've seen thus far :).

[Jack 0Neill]

WMP11 isnt that old and works fine, so if it isnt broke then why fix it?

It is broken though.

Right click > Video Size > Fit Video to Player on Resize

If you have WMP maximized it does not stretch the video to fit when you load a new video/go to next video.

[threesixtyflip]

Is there anyway to make WMP11 look like WMP10 because that would be great! Functionality of 11 with the actually decent UI of 10.

[Crazysah]

I can assure you, the screenshot that BreakingBenjamin posted is not anything like WMP12 will look like. However, the status bar icon in the systray is similar to what I've seen thus far :).

I totally agree with you there...

[Zlain]

I use itunes anyway. WMP 11 looks good and everything, but I like the simple layout of all the songs in itunes rather than having to browse through albums in WMP 11

[Red Herring]

Well one thing WMP12 (if it ever happens) should have is H.264/AAC/MP4 support every other major software player has it, even Flash now and DivX too are going H.264 leaving only Microsoft with WMP as the odd man out.

And it's not just that but Microsoft's other products have support for those formats like the Zune, the Xbox 360 or even the Vista media center extenders but Microsoft expects people to rely of registry hacks or changing file extensions in WMP to make it all work. This is very poor in terms of ease of use for consumers and relying on third parties is not a good idea given the general disinterest shown by most in developing any sort of plugin for WMP.

Also with WMP11 expecting filter providers to make the necessary changes is unrealistic given that 99% of people out there use a free codec like ffdshow, some of the codec packs do now make the changes to WMP but integration is still less than ideal as music/videos played from the library cannot seek, fast-forward, rewind to display the time length of a file. I ended up making my own reg patches for flac, mp4, mkv etc as I did not want to install any of those bloated codec packs but nowhere in Microsofts MSDN does it give you any tips on how to address those problems.

I get the feeling anyone on the media player team was lured away to the Zune team as that's the only app that seems to be making progress any more which is a pity as the Zune media player doesn't even support directshow so we cant use any third party formats.

[Licenturion]

Screenshots of the new Windows Media Player:

Some new features:

- You can now work with 'Favorites' like in IE, Windows Explorer and Live Gallery (new menu on the right bottom)

- Now playing is gone. The default view is the Library. A good thing since the Visualizations in WMP are crap and use space

- The upper bar is replaced with the 'breadcrumb' toolbar in WMP11 and the Play, Sync and Burn buttons are replaced to the right...

I hope they finally remove the 'Media Guide' bar or make it hidden...