Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 [WMP 11]
From Microsoft:
?Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP offers great new ways to store and enjoy all your music, video, pictures, and recorded TV. Play it, view it, and sync it to a portable device for enjoying on the go or even share with devices around your home?all from one place.?
What Microsoft says is always funny because it makes no sense, and always remains the same no matter what version releases.
Review:
[Screenshots near end of post]
Features:
This one is mostly just like IE7, added effects, gloss and slick looks that most of us adore today, and very low on new features.
1. Library:
I found the library system to be upgraded, and the new system simply ?R0X0RZ?.
It displays the library in a cool CD-Case view and if you got album arts for most of your albums, you are bound to have a neat looking library view. But the no-CD-Cover image looks really really ugly and I hate it. Thank goodness I got all album arts for my collection, heh. Also, the album folder view has the cool stacking feature, like piles of CDs kept on one another.
WMP 11 also has Video and Picture libraries, and those are pretty decent too, only if the Video library had live previews of small clips from a large video, then it?d be pretty cool.
2. Management:
Also, tagging new music has never been simpler than this. Right click an album in its view, choose ?Find album info? and it finds info for the first track. Now if you found the exact album you are looking for, just check the ?Use album selected below …? and click the album you think is right, that is it, all your files of the album are tagged completely automatically. I found this a boon for my recently ID3-Removed MP3 collection. Really saves the work of verifying things at MusicBrainz.org.
3. Interface:
The Now Playing screen has been updated as well, most people wouldn?t like it cause its plain now, with just visualizations or just album art, or nothing at all, depends on what you choose. The old one with the rating and all the jazz was better in my opinion.
Apart from all these, all stuff remain the same. With perhaps Live Searching and Global Status of the Player being a bit new.
4. Media Formats and others:
Codec wise, Windows Media Player 11 now plays DVD out of box, supports more video formats, loves DRM [Yeah, we hate it?]. In short, its like ?I Play All, I am God? Err, WMP 11? [It acquires necessary codecs like DivX from the Internet.]
Oh yeah, one more thing, it can now stream as well, to Xbox 360 and any other UPnP [Universal Plug and Play] devices. And it supports a ton more of portable music players now, thanks to its Play For Sure feature.
If you liked the License Backup tool WMP 10 gave, you will be disappointed cause this version doesn?t have such a tool anymore, thereby disallowing users to back up or restore licenses on their and other systems. As if one liked licenses, heh.
5. Stores:
URGE looks really cool and beautiful, but it?s the first time am paying attention to the stores in a music player so maybe I have missed better store looks somewhere, do tell me of those. Heh, am not 18 yet to posses a credit card and thus the stores make no sense to me, but it looks cool and there are good free radio stations available on them too. But URGE?s interface really beats that of the default MSN one. It has got a good buying potential I must say. Havent tried other stores yet, like Napster, etc. If you are looking to buy music from these DRM havens, WMP helps in that.
6. Problems:
It has a black mini-player, this doesn?t go well with most of the themes we keep, not even with Windows?s Luna. Maybe it was designed with this theme kept in mind [A minute probability].
Also, this version has been optimized to give users its best performance when run with a decent internet connection. Of course the policy is right that ?Internet is the future? but still, there are many out there with dial ups or no internet at all.
Rest issues are minor, like a bad tagging tool that has no ?Next? button to continue editing stuff, and other small stuff.
Screen shots:
The Library:
Now Playing:
URGE:
![Windows Media Player [WMP] 11's URGE Store interface.](http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1821/wmpurgepw0.jpg)
Mini Player:
Download:
[WMP Site] [Direct Download x86] [WGA]
Final Verdict:
Get it, get it somehow and install it anyhow! This one is a beauty for well organized music lovers and non organized ones, both!
Hello QWERTY
Congrats you new domain
I have added this to my Fav (and keeping your old one … just in case)
lizze
2 Nov 06 at 11:12 am
well u r right that hardly anything changes with a new version release, at least anything that it is noticeable. that was with IE7 too. except urge and the cool longhorn theme, nothing much has changed. the organiser is gud though. i still prefer using VLC. it’s iPod theme is cool. plus, it has all codecs installed. i never organise my media collection. so it suits me.
saurabh.sauron
2 Nov 06 at 1:08 pm
@Lizze – Thanks! Added you too
Didnt do it before as I was lazy at the time. Added many now 
@Sauron – You got a lot of music? Then it sucks to keep it unorganized. VLC for music? Whoa man!
Harsh J
2 Nov 06 at 8:08 pm
Wow, that library looks really nice, only because it has the Dresden Dolls and Le Tigre there… joking.
But the library does looks nice now that there are pictures there. Easier on the eyes because it’s a visual thing rather than a list. Can you change the way you see the library? (eg. put it in a list.)
Wengistein
3 Nov 06 at 4:49 am
Yeah you can hide the images as well and make it look like before, lists. I hate the alphabetical group though.
Harsh J
3 Nov 06 at 8:07 am
But I bet u need Windows Genuine and with SP 2 to run this right ?
teen
3 Nov 06 at 11:03 am
Yeah, check the WGA link there
Harsh J
3 Nov 06 at 11:18 am
How did u go ahead with it’s installation , besides I don’t have SP 2 , I’m SP 1
teen
3 Nov 06 at 12:21 pm
Get SP2 teen, its great and stable.
Go to the link above and get the WPA Registry patch, add it to the registry and run the installation. At validation prompt, hit Validate and it must succeed.
Harsh J
3 Nov 06 at 12:31 pm
[...] The hit list is: ???? Video Lan Client Player [VLC] ???? Media Player Classic [MPC] ???? GOM Player ???? Windows Media Player 11 ???? Real Player ???? Winamp [...]
A confusion of Media Players for Videos at Memoirs of a QWERTY
7 Nov 06 at 9:14 pm
I just installed WMP 11 and cannot figure out how to have the screen display the total number of music files I have in the LIBRARY. The old version always kept a running count in the lower left hand corner. HELP!!
Sabina
23 Dec 06 at 7:13 am
How do I display the total amount of time required to play all of the songs in my library?
To view “Total Time” for the songs in your library in Windows Media Player 11, you must select them so you can view this information for the selected items in the Player. The number of selected items and the total time that is required to play them is displayed to the right of the playback controls at the bottom of the Player. Note that it is not possible to display the total size of selected items in the Player.
To display the number of selected items in your library
1. In Windows Media Player 11, click the Library tab.
2. On the address bar, click the Select a category button, and then click the category that you want to look in (in this case, Music).
3. In the Navigation pane, under Library, click Songs.
4. In the Details pane, click any song in the list, and then press the keyboard shortcut combination CTRL+A.
This must display total files and runtime.
Source – MS FAQs
Harsh J
24 Dec 06 at 5:12 am
Harsh: Thanks for the suggestion, it worked! Now I know that about 1,000 files did not transfer over to WMP 11. I’m uninstalling and going back to the previous version. Good thing that I’ve saved my music on an external drive.
Sabina
25 Dec 06 at 12:36 am
Sabina: Instead of going back to old WMP and losing a few new features, you could select all your files in Windows [via Ctrl+A] and drag it on the Library view of WMP 11, it’ll add it no matter what then cause I faced the same issue with WMP 11. Of course, do this only if you feel like, cause MS gets on people’s nerves sometimes
Harsh J
25 Dec 06 at 12:46 am
Is there a way of always displaying the amount of songs without highlighting everything?
Alice
12 Jun 07 at 8:29 pm
Not that I know of
Harsh J
12 Jun 07 at 8:46 pm
is there a way of always displaying the amount of songs without highlighting everything pleez help
vvxcv
30 Jun 07 at 3:13 am
The only way to display the total amount and play time or lenght of the songs is to select all by hitting CTRL + A. No other possible way in Windows Media Player 11.
Harsh
30 Jun 07 at 12:02 pm
Test.
Harsh
2 Jul 07 at 9:43 pm
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title soft Windows Media Player 11 [WMP 11] at Harsh J. Thanks for informative article
Jakob
7 Jul 07 at 1:55 pm
I am switching to Itunes, I really need to know how much time I have selected. None of the suggestions are working on my machine.
Joe N
23 Oct 07 at 7:50 pm
how do you get the time of a full playlist! is it possible?
pete
24 Nov 07 at 10:53 am
Select all items in the list using Ctrl + A and you should see the length in the status bar.
Harsh
24 Nov 07 at 10:59 am
I can highlight all songs and see the number of items to the right of play controls, but I don’t see the total of runtime. I wish this feature was added just like in previous versions. Is there any trick? Did anybody manage to display number of item AND total runtime?
Olga
29 Jan 08 at 8:55 pm
How do I put some avi files into the video library and How do I get some avi files to go into TV series?
I have Movie avi and TV series avi and I want them seperate
janet
1 Jul 08 at 2:02 pm