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Windows Media Player 11 Released

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

October 30, 2006, 3:17 PM

After a brief delay, Microsoft on Monday made available Windows Media Player version 11. The update includes several enhancements, including a new user interface, improved syncing, and integration with the URGE music service.

Windows Media Player 11 has been publicly available as a beta download since May of this year. However, issues with the quality of the release caused Microsoft to delay the final product while last minute bugs are ironed out. WMP11 works on Windows XP is available for download in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants.

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By cheeser1

edited Mar 18, 2007 - 3:17 PM

24MB? MPlayer is like 11MB, and it includes all the codecs in it. What a shame for dial up users.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu

Score: 0

By jchandler16

edited Feb 28, 2007 - 3:20 PM

Check out my WMP11 review here:
http://www.techoriphic.c...mediaplayer11review.htm

Great work at Beta News btw
All the best
Josh Chandler

Score: 0

By tgangadhar

edited Jan 20, 2007 - 4:14 AM

fine

Score: 0

By KERH

edited Dec 6, 2006 - 9:13 PM

Just let me see what I want.
All that is visible when I plug into video's via MSN is the word 'BETA....'
I'm with Firefox...any ideas?

Score: 0

By plumlipstick

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 12:09 PM

The sound quality is good. I have to give them that. Playlist manipulation in the new version is a royal pain, and I don't like the menu bar disappearing like it does. With its lack of global hotkeys, it still can't replace Winamp. I like being able to pause music or go to the next song without having to switch to the player window and click around.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 5:02 PM

I run WMP fine from the "multimedia" buttons at the top of my keyboard.

Score: 0

By GCoder

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 10:53 AM

wow, it sux.

Ive got the URGE to chunk...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 9:11 AM

BITES.

Downloaded it, installed it, popped in a DVD and selected my region when it popped up and asked me.

Apparently, it didn't like my choice and told me it would play the DVD because I was set to the improper region.

It didn't save the setting. There appears to be no way to manually set it. Every time I pop in a different DVD it says my current region is "not selected". Try to set it to 1 and it fails.

Nero works fine. VLC works fine. WinDVD works fine...

Microsoft fails it this time. It's an all media except DVD's player.

Score: 0

By roj

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 8:26 PM

Media Player Classic.

'nuff said.

Score: 0

By Neoprimal

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 3:50 AM

I'm liking it. I don't really find it bloated, since I use all the features. The one thing I don't like are the sync features - they need to allow users to set sync folders for different devices. Apart from that it's great - stable, clean, useful.

Score: 0

By DudeBoyz

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 2:05 AM

After 10 taking over my right-menu with all of its shorcuts and putting them back even after I delete them in the registry, I am sticking with WMP 9. I just don't trust these guys anymore. I figure WMP 11 will dial home and tell them everything I have that the player could possibly play and how I use it. Yeah, they'll call it "quality control feedback assurance" or some such junk, but after that crud they are pulling with Vista transfers being limited to one time, I'm just giving up on anything Microsoft, free or cost.

I'm stuck with their OS, as it is pretty much shoved down our throats by their monopolistic bundling stuff, but anything else, I'm trying to go with another company.

I agree that Media Player Class 6.4 is a great way to go.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 5:00 PM

I'm stuck with their OS, as it is pretty much shoved down our throats by their monopolistic bundling stuff, but anything else, I'm trying to go with another company.
The OS is forced by bundling, I thought the bundling was forced by the OS.

So you don't use Notepad, Wordpad, Outlook Express, MSN/Windows Messenger, Address Book, Paint, Disk Defragmenter, Scan Disk, Remote Desktop, etc...? You know, you could even replace the GUI and the command prompt, heck, even the commands themselves. What level of "bundling" is too much, and should every company be held to your answer?

Score: 0

By cheeser1

posted Mar 18, 2007 - 12:43 PM

Notepad sucks. Frought with stupid problems. Wordpad is usless. I've never met ANYONE who uses it. Outlook express is garbage. So is IE for that matter. MSN messenger is junk, GAIM is much better, in fact, anything is better. Address book is worthless, it's hard to use and you're better off having an address BOOK (as in not something you have to be at your computer to use). Paint sucks. Talk about bare-bones. The disk defragmenter isn't very good, nor is scan disk - highly limited functionality. Remote desktop is known as VNC to everyone who isn't retardedly Windows-centric. They've had VNC services forEVER. Windows packs it up and integrates it and everybody says "WOW NEAT NEW INNOVATION." Lame.

There are free versions of all of these applications that are much better. MSOffice even has a free version that's better.

You're also totally talking about the wrong thing. Bundling is when Microsoft has every single computer manufacturer buying their OS exclusively. Duh.

Score: 0

By drumcat

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 12:34 AM

Guys, don't be too elitist. It's bloated for a reason, and that's compatibility. Zune, anybody?

Score: 0

By JEdwardP

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 10:57 PM

24 MB for this thing?! Maybe it does appeal to the average user, but never to me. There's simply no advantage to it whatsoever.

For quite sometime now, I've used foobar for audio and Media Player Classic for video, and the only change I've made recently is to use nLite to remove the 9.x version of this behemoth altogether.

Score: 0

By Crand3

posted Nov 1, 2006 - 12:33 AM

24mb is crazy. I only have 500gb on my server, 250 on my desktop, and 160 on my media center. Storage be damned!

Score: 0

By linkintinku14

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 9:49 PM

thus this toooo neeed INTERNET to INSTALL lolz

Score: 0

By Banquo

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 9:18 PM

It looks a little better than 10 but I'm still going to pass. I used nlite to completely remove all traces of Windows Media Player from my system and have been using Media Player Classic instead. It plays virtually every format without all the bloat. Microsoft had it right with Media Player 6.4 and then they completely went off course.

Score: 0

By templar™

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 9:39 PM

Yeah, Media Player Classic is my choice too. Lean and mean. And the keyboard shortcuts are cool too. I can't live w/o it.

As for WMP, I still use it for listening to mp3s & ripping music off my CDs.

WMP is better used for music than video, IMO.

Score: 0

By constust

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 7:33 PM

Bloat. All you need is VLC and WinAmp. What is the point of this? You could probably create an entire operating system with less code than this player.

Score: 0

By ertisan

edited Nov 1, 2006 - 8:45 AM

I hate using different programs when you can do it better with 1 unique program. WMP11 is better and lighter than WinAMP. WMP11 Instant Search is fantastic! With WMP11 you can also organize and watch your photos!!!
WinAmp Pro version prize is $14.95, instead WMP11 is free and better

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 7:38 PM

No probably about it, but I am pretty sure you'd only have the command prompt, or not much better than Win3.1 graphics.

Score: 0

By melkor

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 8:18 PM

You can fit allot of operating system in 24 MB. There are a number of Linux distributions that fit in that size (not to mentiontion windows 3.1; now where did i put those old floppy disks?).

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 4:54 PM

And do those distros have decent guis or multimedia capabilities built in? Last I heard, full distros of Linux were still lacking in the sound department.

Score: 0

By IceyKola

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 10:37 AM

My windows 3.1 install was 6 floppy discs.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 10:58 AM

Mine was 1 CD.

Came with my Zeos computer.

Got a job doing support for them and talked to a guy who shot his computer while cleaning his gun (obviously not the brightest guy in the world). Blew off the lower right corner of the board. Had no sound, but the system still worked.

Of course, that was back in the Full-AT sized 486 mainboards. Those SOB's had a ton of wasted space.

My Zeos was the best computer I've ever owned. When Micron bought us out, it all went to the s***ter though. Computers started to suck, management was horrible... Made some damn good friends though.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 4:47 PM

I got a great computer from Micron around 2000. I still use the pre-Thunderbird 1Ghz Athlon as my living room media player. I even flashed the bios wrong one time, about 4 or 5 years ago. It still works. Granted with a 1Ghz processor and PC1600 it does have a hard time with h264 content. The case is great too, you just have to remove one screw to remove the mobo. Of course, if you don't realize this at first, you'll end up bending and torquing the mobo like I did trying to pop it past those hooks...and be amazed when you install it in the cheap case you bought to "recycle" the parts, and it still works.
And to think, I knocked the whole thing three feet when my elbow accidentally slammed it the day I got it.

Score: 0

By kowrek

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 4:50 PM

Erm... What's the attraction of WMP11? Can someone fill me in?

Zoom player or Classic Media Player are most excellent for video.

Winamp is superior for audio.

WMP has been bloated since v6.4. Where's the attraction for this?

Score: 0

By ertisan

posted Nov 1, 2006 - 8:46 AM

WinAMP Pro Version $14.95
WMP11 is free

Score: 0

By SrLnclt

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 7:24 PM

I'm with you here. Besides updating a few of MS proprietary codecs, I don't really know.

I'd much rather have something thats very good at doing exactly what I want and very little more than that. I think Media Player Classic and a couple codecs work just great for all my video needs.

I have the same problem with security stuff. If I decide to try a different firewall, I either get a ton of bloat I don't want or I get some other company's anti-virus, anti-spyware, phishing/fraud protection, popup blockers, etc along with the firewall.

When will company's realize that having 90% of your user base using less than 10% of your features is usually a bad thing.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 4:51 PM

When will company's realize that having 90% of your user base using less than 10% of your features is usually a bad thing.
When people stop buying things they don't need and will never use.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 6:03 PM

I am guilty of liking the bloat in WMP. I use Classic for most of my video watching, but I haven't even considered Winamp since before AOL bought it. I got too tired of poorly documented plugins and minor version increments breaking almost every plugin and skin I had. I'll try it again when it becomes compatible with the 5+ year old skins I have.

With WMP, I do not feel the need to put a skin on it (most are atrocious anyway and not just for WMP either). Its standard interface looks slick enough to me, and its library features are at very least sufficient for my needs.

How is Winamp superior anyway? Its been so long since I used it.

Score: 0

By plumlipstick

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 12:22 PM

In 2 words... "global hotkeys!" It's why Winamp stays. I don't use the full version with visualizations because I don't like them, and they take up too much memory. I do like being able to press windows v to go to the next song in my playlist while I'm writing email instead of being forced to switch to the player window to do it. Until MP has such a feature, it will always be a distant runner up to me. As for your skins, the latest version of Winamp is able to run skins I got in 1999.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 4:49 PM

I run WMP fine from the "multimedia" buttons at the top of my keyboard.

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 5:35 PM

Bloat IS the attraction...for the "average" user. This morning, I had to hunt down a user who tried to email a 280MB attachment. That's right, MB not KB. More than a quarter of a gig. When I pointed this out, he stared blankly at me and asked, "Is that too much? I don't mind if it takes a while."

We can make fun of him all we want but at the end of the day, he's ultimately no different than hundreds of millions of other regular, non-technical people. If you look at the latest frenzy in the Mac world (OS X 10.4.8 hacked), there is a relatively tiny percentage of the community who is going absolutely bonkers about it, but easily 90% of the total OS X market couldn't care less and probably more than 50% will never even know that a 10.4.8 version was released by Apple, much less that it got hacked. (I get resumes all the time from people who claim to have experience with Windows 2005 and Office 2005. Yup, they're experts in every detail of those products!)

Face it -- we're talking a media player here. If you had to pick just one app where you expect bloat, wouldn't this be it? Myself, I'll stick with Media Player Classic, but I'm not the slightest bit puzzled about the attraction for WMP 11.

Score: 0

By Crand3

posted Nov 1, 2006 - 9:45 AM

All things considered, how big IS 280mb these days? With the price of storage, 280mb is a drop in the bucket.

Score: 0

By brinkeguthrie

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 10:13 PM

are you serious? 280 MB?? and they said 'is that too much?' Iwould assume your mail server just went...

Is the file size on this really 24MB? Pass. Since iTunes 7.1 got straightened out, I havent used WMP once. I play a DVD on it- it locks up.

Score: 0

By kronix2

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 12:42 PM

"Is the file size on this really 24MB? Pass. Since iTunes 7.1 got straightened out, I havent used WMP once."

What's your ****ing point? The iTunes installation package is 35mb.

Score: 0

By owenw

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 5:42 PM

Windows Media Player 11 is very stable, easy to use, and VERY organised. They have worked very hard on this release to ensure there are no security flaws. Congratulate them.
Looking forward to the great Vista Features :)

Score: 0

By AlanRivaldo

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 11:36 AM

I haven't tried it yet. Just curious - do you work somewhere in Microsoft, or perhaps know someone who works there?

Score: 0

By hiyoag

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 4:26 PM

I was under the impression that WMP11 doesn't give you the option to back up your licenses if you bought any content legally. Doesn't that make it kind of suck?

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 3:49 PM

Worked fine, install took a while. Interface is better, activation/validation is getting old.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Oct 30, 2006 - 3:27 PM

I'll wait at least a week or so before using it--even though MS usually does well, WMP is still pretty big, and there isn't a "FireFox Player" out there yet (although the other third-party players collectively take alot of market share, none of them really stand out from the others to me).

Okay, the big thing I'm worried about is any new DRM software--it usually works and recognises that I legally own all of the songs, but recently the new DRM software has had some glitches and I'll wait to ensure those will not occurr in this version before I install it. Sides, if it ain't broke, don't fix it...unless you're dealing with security issues that is.

Score: 0

By frohman

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 7:47 PM

Actually, there is a "Firefox Player". It is called Songbird and can be found at www.songbirdnest.com. Just a warning, though, that this is currently only a developer preview release (version 0.2) and not yet ready for public consumption. It does look to have a bright future.

Score: 0

By spongy-poo

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 9:36 PM

Cool. Thanx.

Score: 0

By horsecharles

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 10:02 PM

actually it's getting disbanded-- Link

Score: 0

By spongy-poo

posted Oct 31, 2006 - 9:34 PM

amusing ;o)

Score: 0

By burles07

posted Oct 30, 2006 - 3:22 PM

finally. its about time! =) it works great and i love the new user interface! =)

Score: 0

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