14 Windows Media Player Power Tips
PrintWindows Media Player: The end-all, be-all software for displaying most multimedia on your system. It’s an inescapable part of the Windows experience. While, sure, it seems as if there are as many alternative song library apps, video playing utilities, and music-blasting programs as there are pages on the Internet, it’s hard to resist the urge to turn to the simple, no-fuss attraction of good ol’ WMP. It works; it’s there; it’s quick to load and it plays your files without hassle.
Sort-of.
With any multimedia application, there are always going to be ways to tweak your experience. Some are inherent to the program itself, some require a modification or a tweak to unlock, and others can be seen as a kind-of total converstion: a third-party application that works in tandem with your multimedia app to bring forth some kind of awesome new functionality.
We’re fans of all three scenarios at Maximum PC. And let’s face it: Windows Media Player might be entrenched inside of your operating system worse than a camper in Call of Duty: Black Ops, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t build it up into the Greatest Media Player Ever with a few (or more) helpful tips. We’ve split our list into sections based on the difficulty of the tweak—let’s get started!
In celebration of Windows' 25th Anniversary, check out our other Windows articles: The Future of Windows and 11 OSes that Tried!
Install Zune
No, we’re not trolling you. It’s important that we mention, right off the bat, that Microsoft’s other multimedia player is really a stronger selection when it comes to playing music. It’s prettier, the interface is light-years beyond Windows Media Player in terms of raw elegance, and it effortlessly connects up to the Zune Marketplace for your music-grabbing needs. Or video-grabbing needs. Or podcast-grabbing needs.
Simply put, Zune is the closest Microsoft has to its own iTunes. You just aren’t going to find this kind of functionality within Windows Media Player, nor will you really find any kind of social or recommendation-based tips for music management (or acquisitions). Windows Media Player—as the name implies—plays media. That’s it.
Enable Streaming
Just because you’ve gone and made it through Windows Media Player’s default configuration screens (upon first launch of the app) doesn’t mean that you’ve scratched the surface of this app’s powerful capabilities. Case in point: Media Streaming.
Not only is it in your best interests to make sure that your system is set up for Homegroup sharing (click “Stream” and the “Turn on media streaming…” option), but you’ll also want to enable the back-and-forth connections that allow WMP to automatically see other devices on your network (and vice versa). Hit up the Network and Sharing Center via your Control Panel and click on “Advanced Sharing Settings” on the left side of the window. Turn on Network Discovery and Media Streaming.
Play to… Who?
If you’ve successfully set up WMP to find and share its contents within your home network, it’s worth your while to go back and perform those same series of steps on all the other applicable devices attached to your home router. With one addition, of course: Click on the Stream button within WMP and select the “Allow remote access…” option. In the case of consoles like the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, be sure to enable whatever their versions of media streaming happen to be.
Why’s that? Within WMP, you can right-click on a given file and select the “play to” option (provided the software can see other sharing-friendly products on your network). And when you do that, you’ll be blasting your song on over to whatever device you’ve selected—music to your ears, indeed!
Visualize Your Rock
The default WMP screen doesn’t lend itself to much eye candy. When you start to jam a song, click on the tiny icon in the bottom-right of WMP’s library screen (hovering over it will cause “Switch to Now Playing” to appear. Do that, and you’ve just fired up WMP’s built-in visualizations engine. Right click on the miniature player window to select new effects via the “Visualizations” submenu.
You can download new visualizations (and plugins—their more data- and effects-related counterparts) by using the CTRL+1 hotkey to jump back to your library, then mashing CTRL+T to access your Tools menu. From there, select the “Download” submenu to hunt down more cool things to mash into your player!
Friends Don’t Let Friends See Viewing Habits
Nothing is more embarrassing than chugging on over to your friend’s house, hopping on his or her computer to jam the latest Maximum PC podcast, and finding that the “most frequently played” or “recent files” listing accidentally lists a ton of videos of an unsavory nature that, perhaps, your friend would not like you to know about.
Don’t be that friend.
To keep WMP from archiving a list of your most frequently played media—whatever that media happens to be—be sure to hit up its options window (under the Tools menu). When you’re in there, click to the privacy tab and uncheck all four options at the very bottom of the screen—music, video, pictures, and playlists!
You Ripping Robot You
Transferring media to and from a CD couldn’t be easier in Windows Media Player. Or could it? Instead of having to toss a disc in, click on over to the disc, and select the “rip music” option, you can easily transform WMP into an auto-ripping machine. Just click on the Options link under the “Tools” menu and navigate on over to the “Rip Music” tab. Make sure your settings are exactly how you want them to be, then check the “Rip CD automatically” box.
Now, the second you slap a fresh piece of musical media into your optical drive, WMP will go about the enjoyable process of stealing its contents down to your hard drive. Rinse, wash, and repeat for as many discs as you want Windows to deal with. And if you want to get really speedy, check the “Eject CD After Ripping” option as well.
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Comments
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December 26, 2011 at 4:34am
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December 03, 2011 at 5:08am
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Paul Meier
February 14, 2011 at 7:31am
Re: your article in the March, 2011 issue regarding "Keep Playlists Private" in Windows Media Player. I have WMP11 running under Vista64, and a friend has WMP12 running under Windows 7. Neither of us can locate a "Tools" drop down menu. Where exactly is that located?
pmeier@nycap.rr.com
erniemink
November 30, 2010 at 3:33pm
This is an issue with your setup and computer. I know 46 people I am in contact with on a daily basis who have ONE TERABYTE hard drives full of videos, music and apps and they do not deal with that, even with the XBOX 360 Elite. You need to make sure your computer is first of all running Windows 7, and is up to date and that you have a good processor cabpable of dual core or even quad core speeds of at least 3 GHz, and a efficient hard drive and always have a good internet security program like Kapersky or Eset. This is a common issue that can be fixed easily with common knowledge and maintenance such as the above and using CCleaner and defraggin your hard drive with a good program like Puran Defrag. Hope this helps.
DoctorDyna
November 30, 2010 at 8:41am
I've tried to get WMP and media center going a few times, mostly to have an easy way to get my music and stuff in the living room with my xbox 360, but I've always had terrible problems.
Whenever I set my media directory in WMP, it starts a war with my hard drive trying frantically to add more than 400GB of music. The hard drive roars fiercely for hours. It gets to about 25 or 30% done and starts hanging and not responding.
And then there's wmpntwrk (or whatever it is)running in the background, presumably trying to continue indexing after you've gotten frustrated and closed WMP.
timekills
November 26, 2010 at 10:32pm
Couple comments:
1) Highly recommend Sharky's Codec pack over CCCP. Multiple reasons, but bottom line Sharky's has less bloat, and better integration with ALL Windows' apps. At least check out the site. It has 32bit and 64bit versions as well. http://shark007.net/
2) dragonsomebodyftw: Have you tried the Zune software? It blows iTunes out of the water, and is much better than MediaMonkey at podcast and music integration. I own iPods, Zunes, and a number of other lesser brand MP3/media players, and MediaMonkey is good for generic use, admittedly. However the Zune software, for Windows, has come a LONG way and is the best all-around media management software.
Shalbatana
November 18, 2010 at 10:49pm
Okay so after trying MANY players, I've stooped to trying VLC yet again. However it still seems rancid with bugs. It won't play directly from a DVD without massive drops.
Anyway, I'm still looking for that "one player to rule them all". WMP was never a qualifier because of the limited codec support, and the lack of details it can give about a file it's playing. You've solved one issue for me (thanks) but didn't mention the other.
How can I get WMP to display the detailed info I can get from say... Super, or (shudders violently at the thought of mentioning this program in a good light) Quicktime, or even Nero SHowtime?
If I could get it to play all the codecs I can get, say VLC, Mplayer and Foobar to play, be stabke, skinnable and produce detailed info, WMP would be that top class player I've always wanted.
Athlonite
November 21, 2010 at 8:57pm
have you tried Media Player Classic - HomeCinema they do an 32 and 64 bit version so ok it's not the prettiest looking player but the latest version is very powerful and just works like a charm
Shalbatana
January 10, 2012 at 8:53am
Have tried, MPC, but not "home cinema". That one is great, but I dispise the way it looks. I'ts also slightly feature primitive. (is it THAT hard to create a modern skin or two?) Still I'll look into it again, perhaps they've improved it. - Thanks
bobla90042
November 17, 2010 at 8:12pm
WMP can play havoc with your machine's resources if media sharing is turned on. If your resources (CPU usage) goes way up and your system slows down after you used WMP (even if you've closed it), check the Task Manager and the processes running. If you see that the WPM process is hogging your system, search with the name of the process to get instructions on how to disable it. It can get complicated depending on which version of windows you're using.
Comptech22
November 17, 2010 at 11:59am
Any good article I read has to give me "something" and yours gave me CCCP. Great job.
ShadowDragoonFTW
November 17, 2010 at 6:15am
You, sir, recieved a very serious facepalm/chuckle when I read the Dragon Age: Origins reference right at the top of page two.
I don't know if was epic, or an epic fail, but either way, I must applaud you for it, for I did not see it coming either way.
RichieB07
November 16, 2010 at 10:21pm
It would have been nice to have some links and/or explanations of how to entirely do this.
"Download Zune" doesn't exactly tell me what that means. It is a skin, an entirely different program, some plug-ins?
I really liked the article but some explanations would have been nice.
TheMurph
November 17, 2010 at 10:38am
Ahh shoot. I think my hyperlinks got stripped out within the CMS, and I didn't even notice.
Suffice, Zune Software = Microsoft's answer to iTunes, as the description notes. It's a software music player / download service for the PC.
ShadowDragoonFTW
November 17, 2010 at 6:13am
I'm praying you're joking here. Do you really not know what Zune is? Honestly?
It was Microsoft's (arguably failed) attempt to take some of the competition away from iPod. They did fairly well, but were plagued with software issues... it's still around, but nobody even gives it a glance anymore.
I suppose the interface on it is nice and all, but I really hate how they take control away from you. What happens if they accidentally identify a song as a completely different one? Well, you have to live with perpetually fucked-up cover art and track names, etc., etc. That's why I use mp3Tag for making my library correctly marked, and I've heard MediaMonkey is awesome for playing music, but have yet to try it.
mikeart03a
November 16, 2010 at 10:04pm
I just gave Windows the boot and I'm rolling along with Ubuntu and rhythm box and vlc work great for me!
Landstander
November 16, 2010 at 9:53pm
Let me turn Microsoft's marketing department back upon itself. Windows Media Player? Really???
I also use Winamp for audio and VLC for video. Once I started using VLC, many many many years ago, I never looked back. I'd forgotten that WMP still existed.
Dustn525
November 16, 2010 at 9:30pm
As far as FLAC and some others go, K-Lite Codec Pack (free) worked for me, and also allows WMP to play MKV/MV4 files. To add Flac/m4a/ogg/ape/mpc to the music library (also in WMC) WITH metadata, download the free plugin called Tag Support Plugin from Softpointer.com :) Another great Codec pack is Shark007's, especially for WMC HTPC's. It's free also.
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
November 16, 2010 at 8:27pm
I let WMP play some Internet videos, and that's all I use it for. I remember trying to get it to play a bunch of MP3s once, but couldn't get it to work like WinAmp, so I gave up on it.
It's hardly inescapable to anyone with a search engine. I use VLC for video and WinAmp for audio. WMP is intrusive, spying bloatware. Microsoft should scrap it and start over from scratch.
OliverSudden
November 16, 2010 at 8:06pm
Inescapable part of the Windows experience? Really?
Well then I'm the Harry Houdini of Windows. I'm the Andy Dufresne (google it if you don't know) of the PC. I'm that guy who Clint Eastwood played when he escaped from alcatraz in that one movie, I forget the name.
Have you ever looked at the mess that Windows Media Player makes when you allow it to codify and amend your mp3 collection with album art and the like? It's not pretty. There are so many more elegant 3rd party solutions to taming your media collection...VLC Player, Foobar2000, good ol' WinAmp even.
Or were you being ironic?
Personally, I like VLC for video and WinAmp for audio but that's just me.
TheMurph
November 17, 2010 at 10:40am
You're talking to the freeware guy here. You don't have to convince me that there are better software players/organizers/etc out there than WMP. However, you can't deny that Windows Media Player is locked into the Microsoft OS right out of the gate and, for many people, the only media player they'll even think of using.
I mean, the article's entire purpose was ways to make WMP better. Not "Songbird is awesome" or "VLC rules" or what-have-you, which are both statements I would not deny.
Vano
November 16, 2010 at 7:31pm
So many tips with not a single link...oh wait, there is a link! - to your twOtter! Dude, you are so full of your self...
P.S.
and no "murphy's law" in the name of the article? Somehow I missed who was the author, usually I simply ignoring your articles, this one confirms the reason...
Athlonite
November 21, 2010 at 9:02pm
Vano you Bloody Troll go back under the rock you crawled out from under
TheMurph
November 17, 2010 at 10:43am
#1: I apologize for the lack of links; I didn't realize these got stripped in the CMS. I'll add them back in today.
#2: This isn't a column. I don't just title every article I write "Murphy's Law."
#3: Feel free to go go back to your practice of "usually I simply ignoring your articles," but shouldn't that invalidate you from commenting on them?
kamikaji
November 16, 2010 at 8:08pm
How would you feel if you were working at a company, trying to do your best, and a customer just came up to you and said that you suck at your job. Do you think it is going to motivate them to improve, or better yet, make your experience better? NO, I didn't think so. I personally enjoy his articles, so screw off, you jerk.
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