Windows Media Player: WMP mini FAQ

There is a general focus herein on Windows Media Player 11, 10 and 9 Series. However, this FAQ also covers Windows Media Player 7 (WMP7), Windows Media Player 6 (WMP6), and Media Player for XP (MPXP). Most anything about a previous version applies to the next version(s) too.

Windows Media Player 11 Questions

Windows Media Player 11 (build 11.0.5721.5145 for Windows XP SP2, 11.0.6000.6324 for Vista) is available now. A handful of fixes for it are available here, and a new plug-in for Firefox here. I highly recommend Vista users get the cumulative WMP update.

My notes so far:
* Best Tip: If you have "mmswitch.ax" or "neroburnplugin.dll" on your system, you should remove those - those don't work with WMP. If you have "ffdshow.ax", "nvappfilter.dll" (nVidia Network Access Manager), "mpegsplitter.ax", "divxdec.ax", "xvidcore.dll", "igdumd32.dll", "sockspy.dll" (BitDefender Anti-Virus) on your system, you should make sure you have the latest versions of those, as earlier versions may causes crashes. These files alone account for almost half the problems encountered with WMP-Vista. Avoid codec packs. These install old versions of these files and cause your machine to crash. Not good. If you have "mmswitch.ax", remove or delete it, it's just bad.
* SatelliteTVforPC 2006 randomly installs their own version of wmp.dll. This will cause you to crash - or WMP simply won't start at all. Since they've corrupted WMP, uninstalling them won't even fix it.
To fix this for Windows Vista: follow the steps in this article.
To fix this for Windows XP: reinstall the player.
SatelliteTVforPC 2007 does not do this anymore, but that doesn't really help you if you had installed SatelliteTVforPC 2006, sorry. =\
* Vista-only: If you have an Intel 945/946/965 express chipset, get their updated drivers - that should fix up some potential crashes and video glitchings. If you have igdumd32.dll on your system, please look for those drivers, which came out April 2007.
* Vista-only: If your sound card is crackling or having audio glitching (especially towards the end of tracks!), right-click on the Speaker icon in the system tray, select Playback Devices, right-click Speakers in that new dialog, go to Properties, then go to Enhancements - choose "Disable All Enhancements" and you should be fixed up. If this does fix you up, check with your sound card vendor - they should not be having this problem. I believe Dell/Sigmatel do have a driver update here that should fix you up. If you're using an X-Fi and this is happening, disable "Sound Blaster Enhancements" under Control Panel and Properties for the X-Fi.
* Vista-only: Some systems have "DisableProtectedAudioDG" set to 0x1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Audio , which will break some audio playback. Reset that to 0x0 and Urge files should work again. (This can lead to error 0xc00d11b1 if set wrong.)
* Vista-only: You may not be able to install Urge onto some Sony Vista machines. These machines had broken junction points. You can either reinstall Vista to fix this or you can use the junction tool as detailed here.
* If you're using a non-US locale format for your Date, the Recently Added feature won't work right (it likely won't show any content). Either go to the Regional and Language Options control panel, click Customize, click Date and use a MM/DD/YYYY form OR make your own "Recently Added" playlist.
* If you are using WMP11 on Media Center 2005, you should install the October Rollup (KB925766) here.
* To get a tally of the number of songs and their time from within the library, select them. That tally will show up in the chrome briefly. Or hover the mouse over the "Now Doing" region, which is the region above the playlist. If you're building a playlist in the rightmost library pane, you may need to push Stop in order to get the time to show up.
* To start the player in Now Playing, update your WMP shortcut to be "wmplayer.exe /Task:NowPlaying"
* The white corner dots that can appear aren't removable - either switch to Classic Menus or resize the player (which only fixes it until player restart).
* v11 setup issues are covered here.
* There likely will not be a Windows Media Player 11 Enterprise Deployment Pack. You're welcome. You can get this if you ask your Microsoft contact nicely. This may be more officially published at some future point.
* You can uninstall the WMP11 through the Add/Remove Programs control panel. If you have run old versions of CCleaner (they have fixed this in current builds), those will destroy WMP's ability to uninstall. If you have run CCleaner or otherwise find that uninstall fails, you should still be able to use the System Restore point that WMP created in order to roll back to your previous player version. If you have run CCleaner and System Restore does not work, contact Product Support - steps to do so are available under WMP's Help menu.
* The MMS protocol was deprecated many years ago (v9), and with WMP11 MMS URLs will only work if the server has MMS over HTTP support turned on (preferably for both "Enable HTTP distribution for Windows Media Station service" and "Enable HTTP streaming for Windows Media Unicast service". (KB article.) MMS is only used as a rollover protocol in WMP11.
* Roxio Drag to Disc and Sonic DLA lock the optical drives to appear as hard drives. This blocks WMP from burning to disc. Turn them off if you want to burn with WMP.
* Archaic MS visualizations are not supported.
* If your remote content viewer doesn't see WMP's shared library, remove and readd the sync relationship.
* The Network Sharing Service needs the Universal Plug and Play Device Host, HTTP SSL, and SSDP Discovery services to be functional/running in order to work.
* If you have an iPod and want to use it with WMP, stuff like XPlay and MusicBridge is your friend.
* Vista-only: If you want to use the 64bit version of WMP as the default player on Vista 64-bit, run "unregmp2.exe /SwapTo:64" from an ELEVATED (admin) cmd.exe prompt and then set registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\wmplayer.exe, "Path" to be "%Programfiles%\Windows Media Player". To undo that, reset the "Path" value and then run "unregmp2.exe /SwapTo:32" from an elevated cmd.exe prompt.
* If you're using a super-minimum XPe image, it's not going to work with WMP since WMP requires the crypto service. You would need to rebuild your target image to include the crypto service/infrastructure.
* If you're using a Linksys BEFSR41 router, you'll need to enable Multicast in the router's security setttings. Otherwise that will block the Windows Media Connect / Network Sharing Service from working.
* If you want v11 to queue on double-clicks in the library, set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences, value name "LibraryDoubleClickQueueV11" to the REG_DWORD value 0x1.

Windows Media Player 10 Questions

A surprisingly great list of the further updates available to WMP10 is available here.

• The Napster icon shows up because the MSNMusic service (which used to show a butterfly there) was shut down (more information here). You've always had an icon there - it's the icon of your default installed service, and just represents an icon, and nothing else. No software was randomly installed. If you don't like the icon, change your default service to something else. You don't need to install or use that service either - it's just an icon. WMP10 and 11 always display some icon there.
• If you have problems installing or starting up the player, this section deals with all known issues.
• If you're having video problems after the latest WMP update and have an nVidia card, go to WMP's Tools:Options:Devices:Performances and uncheck "Use High Quality Mode".
• Don't install the WM v9 codec pack on top of WMP10. It doesn't make any sense to do that, and it may break WMA playback for DRM files. Reinstall the v10 player if you install the v9 codec pack by mistake. Symptoms of this problem are a 1) "Module not found" error when playing DRM content, and 2) wmploc.dll being version 10.0.0.3802 or later while wmadmod.dll and/or wmvdmod.dll is only version 10.0.0.3646.
• A feature you probably didn't notice: click on the time display in the player - you can now have the player show Current Time:Total Time, as was requested (since normally it just shows Current Time). =)
• You must have a music service available in order to use the Info Center feature.
• If you get a double library listing (which is just a visual defect), just switch away and then switch back to the Library pane.
• If you're on Windows XPSP2 and wish to rollback from WMP10, you will want to check the "Show Updates" button in the Add/Remove Programs control panel, as WMP10 is a system update. It is not possible to install WMP9 on top of WMP10 and you wouldn't want to.
• The Nero Fast CD Burning Plug-in does not work in WMP10 at this time. You would likely want to remove that.
• The old Radio Tuner is under WMP10's Guide button, then click Radio on that page, then Radio Tuner.
• Lyrics can be viewed in WMP10 using View:Captions. You may need to enable Captions using WMP's Tools:Options:Security's "Show local captions when present".
• The WMP10 Energy Bliss visualization shows Album Art only if the art is in a separate file and only if it is assigned the name "Folder.jpg" or "AlbumArtSmall.jpg". It will also display album art assigned filename "AlbumArt_WMID_Large.jpg" or "AlbumArt_WMID_Small.jpg", but since the average user doesn't understand how to get the WMID, we'll ignore that. You'll get WMID Album Art for the file if you use "Find Album Info" on the track within the library.
• If you get an error that "The current web page is trying to open a site in your Trusted Zone" when opening WMP, go to Internet Explorer's Tools:Internet Options:Security settings and remove "napster.com" from your Trusted Sites list
• If you're synching DRM content to a portable device, get the update (mssscp.dll 10.0.0.3649) so that TransferCount decrements correctly

Windows Media Player 9 Series Player Questions

The following is a quick list of ways to make sure your Windows Media Player 9 Series install is working right:

1. The final release of the player (9.0.0.2980) is available here. A nice list of further updates can be found here.
2. If you are having video flicker during playback, this will fix your nVidia video card up.
3. If you are having audio distortion during the playback of MP3 files, rename the file "ctmp3.acm" on your system (to "ctmp3.bak" or something like that). This is a Creative PlayCenter MP3 decoder that the Player isn't fully compatible with.
4. If you have the pirated software "Nimo" or "Tsunami" installed, you are likely crashing. "Nimo" and "Tsunami" are TERRIBLE packages and should be removed. If for some reason that's not possible (?), make sure you remove "mmswitch.ax" from Morgan Multimedia.
   
5. If you are getting a class not registered error during playback of some AVI files, this likely means that you have an old broken version of the DivX codec. installed. If you update to their recent build, you should be okay.
6. If local URL flips (ScriptCommands) do not work, this is a security Feature. Only HTTP or HTTPS URLs work within Windows Media Script Commands at this point. The solution to this limitation is that for local system presentations you will need to handle the URL flips with JavaScript or the like within the web page hosting the player control.
7. If crossfading (a Windows XP feature) does not work for MP3 files, you likely have a pirated MP3 encoder installed to your system. This codec will NOT crossfade. If you're using WMP9, you can rename the file "l3codeca.acm" (and/or l3codecp.acm) on your system (to "l3codeca.bak" or such) and then reinstall the player and things should work fine at that point. If you're using WMP10, you would need to run "regsvr32.exe l3codeca.acm". However, that won't work if you've pirated the FhG codec: doing so will pretty much leave you broken and out of luck. Don't pirate software.
8. If MP3 encoding does not work and you're using the Intervideo MP3 Encode pack, you'll need to download an updated version from their web site to get it to work with the 9 Series player.
9. WMP will reject playback of MP3 files that have headers it does not understand. Read here to get an update to WMP that helps it understand more of your MP3 files.
10. If you're having networking problems, look here.
11. Make sure your DirectX, video card, and audio card drivers are up to date either via Windows Update or your card manufacturer's web site. You'd be surprised at how much difference good drivers make. Also, these steps should also help.
12. If you're having CD burning problems, see here.
13. If WMP is launching at the start-up of your system, this is likely because 3rd party trojan spamware has infected your system. "iedll.exe" for some reasons registers WMP to launch on system start-up - possibly to cover it's own tracks? Regardless, get and run the (free) LavaSoft AdAware anti-spyware software (or SpyBot anti-spy software, or the dedicated CoolWebSearch/iedll.exe killer program), which will clean up iedll.exe. Then you will want to go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" in regedit.exe. There you will likely find a value name entitled "loader" (OR MAYBE SOMETHING ELSE - malicious software did this to your machine, so they try to hide themselves). If this has the data value pointing to wmplayer.exe, delete this registry value. If AFTER CLEANING YOUR SYSTEM OF SPYWARE you still are having this problem, you should be able to use MSConfig to figure out where WMP is being loaded at, and turn it off.

Additionally, please note:

• If the 9 Series installer reports failure, this is likely not a critical failure. A partial failure in a subcomponent that appears to have no affect on player performance is likely the cause. If you simply run "wmplayer.exe" directly at this point, the player should likely work fine. I'm looking into this.
• Albums/Artists no longer show up in the playlist selection drop down in order to improve performance. If you want them back in that list, right-click on the playlist selection drop down list and select the options you want.
• Supposedly DesktopX and ObjectBar's "TrayServer" (as well as "Desktop Manager" and some aspect of WindowBlinds) will block the Windows Media Player 9 Series' toolbar from working correctly. You may need to disable or remove that software for the player toolbar to work.
• If you get the error message "Media Player ActiveX Control was not installed. Program can't continue. Please get Media Player control from Microsoft.com" from a CD you're trying to run, I'd be really curious to know what CD that was. It's buggy, and I'd like to contact the vendor and ask them to fix it...
• Uninstall/rollback issues are addressed here.

The released hot fixes for the 9 Series Player can be found here at Microsoft, or Carsten maintains a nice list of them here.

Internet Connectivity Questions

Q: WMP thinks I'm always offline (or returns error 0xc00d1126 or 0xC00D11B3).

A: First, run the Internet Connection Wizard (Start:Run "icwconn1.exe") - especially if you have a cable or DSL connection.

If you're running a firewall, read this for configuration information. Also, some sites require cookies for the content to play, so disabling cookies may disable WMP's ability to play a file. Note that ZoneAlarm (Pro) will usually neatly disable WMP from working, so either give WMP permissions within Zone Alarm (per Dave Roth: set Zone Alarm to Medium security, or go into the Firewall settings page and hit the "Custom" settings button, enable the "Allow outgoing TCP ports" option, then specify "554, 1755" as the selected ports), or uninstall Zone Alarm if you want things to work. Norton Internet Security and other Internet firewall/security devices can also accidentally block WMP.

If Netscape 6.2 up to 7.0 is set as your primary browser, that can bamboozle WMP7/WMP8's connection sniffing code. You may have better results with Internet Explorer set as your primary browser. This is fixed as of Windows Media Player 9 Series.

If and only if none of these options work for you, there is a final option: go to the WMP's Tools:Options menu dialog and click "Connect to the Internet". This option, present in v9 or newer, should work in every case where there actually is a working non-blocked connection to the Internet.
If you are using an older player, as a final option run this reg file to set your WMP to always think it is online. If you want to get rid of this Force Online setting, run this reg file to remove that setting. Note that this will only force WMP into thinking that you're online - it won't actually fix any connectivity or proxy issues you may be having. If ForceOnline doesn't work, then the question is why your specified/detected connectivity settings aren't work.

If you're having further issues, it is time for you to contact Product Support so that they can figure out a real and better solution for you. Note that networking continues to improve with each version of Windows and each version of Windows Media Player. Ideally you would want to run Windows XP and the Windows Media Player for Windows XP. WM Player 9 Series also has improved networking logic, but Windows 9x still has a relatively flakey networking layer.

Q: I'm getting the error "Object doesn't support this property or method" (or "res://wmploc.dll/Offline_MediaGuide.htm") when trying to view the Media Guide.

A: The following steps should fix it up. Note that you'll want to retry the Media Guide after each step, since I believe not all of these steps are necessary.

• Go into IE's Tools:Internet Options:Advanced menu dialog and enable Active Scripting for the Internet security zone (if you're comfortable with that. Otherwise, don't use the Media Guide since it uses Scripting...).
• Run the network setup wizard (icwconn1.exe) again.
• In WMP9's Tools:Options menu dialog, check the box that says Connect to the Internet.
• Go to IE's Tools:Internet Options:Programs menu dialog, check "Internet Explorer should check to see whether it is the default browser." Quit IE and restart, and if it prompts to become the default browser, let it.
• Go to IE's Tools:Internet Options:Programs menu dialog and click the "Reset Web Settings..." button. (You can uncheck the "Also Reset Home Page" option on the pop-up dialog).

Q: On Windows XP, I get the message "(something) is attempting to change or view this computer's Internet Connection Protection settings. To give (something) permission to edit these settings for as long as the program is open, click YES." when trying to stream content.

A: If you're seeing this while using Internet Connection Sharing, upgrade to Windows XP SP1. If you're seeing this while using the Internet Connection Firewall, then ... the firewall is trying to do the right thing for you. It supposedly does not respect the "Do not show this dialog again" checkbox, which would be a bug in their software, TMK. Other than that, this should just be WMP trying to enable streaming through your firewall. (Alternative firewall solutions likely would not have this issue.)

Q: On Win9x, when I try to configure my Internet connection using the Internet Connection Wizard, I get the error message: "Access Denied: You are restricted from running the Internet Connection Wizard. Contact your Network Administrator for more information." How do I fix this?

A: See this page for how to fix this. Supposedly EarthLink's customizations to IE5 cause this issue, but I've only heard that once.

Q: Why can I not access the "Network" tab in the player's Tools:Options menu?

A: The Microsoft KB article on fixing this sort of corruption is here.
On NT-based systems, Jason said that renaming the "Windows Media" folder under the hidden directory "c:\documents and settings\%USERNAME%\local settings\application data\microsoft" got his "Network" tab working again (these files are found at "%appdata%\local\microsoft\windows media" on Vista). (It appears the bad file may be WMSDKNS.dtd under the "Windows Media" folder in that directory.) In some cases, running "regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\wmnetmgr.dll" may fix this up. In other cases - your system is likely an OS that has been reinstalled in some fashion. For some reason, half of your networking should be pointing to the current profile (c:\documents and settings\user.blah) and half to the old profile (c:\documents and settings\user). I do not know how to fix that short of creating a new user profile. This should be a bug in NT networking that is fixed in Windows XPSP2. (Mike says: "I created a new user (tempuser), then logged in as that user - to create a new profile. Logged out, back in as administrator. Used the Setting button under User Profiles (under the System Properties Advanced tab). Then copied the original user's profile, the one I had the problem with, to the new user. I logged in as the new user, and I could open the network tab in the media player.")

Scott says that you may be able to clean these up by using Account Management (the "Advanced" settings tab under My Computer properties, then click "Settings" under "User Profiles") and delete the old accounts and/or delete the "Account Unknown" entries.

David says that on his system his "wmsdkns.xml" file (under c:\documents and settings\%USER%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Media\10.0) was corrupted, and that deleting that got his system working.
On Win9x based systems, this can be caused by either the "Program Files" or the user name containing non-ASCII characters. In this condition, streaming would be completely broken.

Q: I get a crash in icmp.dll running WMP or WinAMP...

A: For WinAMP, I'm not sure what to tell you. For WMP, install the offline "Force Online" fix. In general, you're having networking problems... the offline fix just potentially works around it.

Q: WMP only plays audio from video files played back from the Internet.

A: Either turn off Internet Connection Sharing or manually specify the speed of your connection in the WMP Tools:Options:Performance settings. (If WMP is detecting an incorrect line speed, the Windows Media Server may helpfully try to thin out the stream coming into your computer, which means that you'll lose quality and possibly the video. Manually specifying the connection speed will prevent this from happening accidentally.) As a final possibility, you may be missing a codec.

Q: Why does WMP always try to go on-line when I open it? / Why does WMP access the Internet when I start a local media file?

A: Uncheck the "Always dial my connection" setting for your dial-up connection. If you're concerned about privacy in this regard, please review the Privacy Policy available under WMP's Help menu. If that doesn't assuage your fears, WMP9 and newer further includes full privacy options so you can turn off anything that you feel may invade your privacy.

If you're still getting connection attempts with WMP9, get this update. Or just click WMP's File:Work Offline option.

Q: Why do I get a crash (or "PDF") in tapisrv32.dll trying to play streamed content?

Q: Why do I get a crash in unimodem trying to play streamed content?

A: The TAPI support for your modem is not functioning correctly. See this page for details on how to fix this. Or in WMP7 (or newer), go to Tools:Options:Performance and manually specify your connection speed. If you don't know your connection speed, you can use these tools to figure it out.

Q: Why is playback choppy for certain clips even though I have a high speed connection?

A: If your line speed is being detected correctly (see next question), you may have BlackIce Defender installed, which for at least two people was causing big performance problems for streaming video. I am not aware of a resolution for this other than removing BlackIce, but the newest version of BlackIce seems to fix this, so updating to a newer version should be the first option tried.
Interestingly, the buggy old SoundBlaster Live reportedly can also cause choppy playback.

Q: When using DirectPC, WMP will disconnect when it starts to play back...

Q: WMP misdetects my line speed/connection speed. How do I fix this?

A: Go to Tools:Options:Performance and manually specify your connection speed. Or if you're using WMP6, you'd want to do this.

Q: Why am I getting a "Fatal exception error OE in VxD Logger (03)"? (logger.vxd)

Q: Why am I getting a blue screen playing back content from the Internet?

A: This appears to be the result of a conflict between certain DSL modems used in conjunction with certain secondary modems. Multiple reports I've had on this suggested that removal of the US Robotics 56k internal modem (v90) cleared up the issue. This support article also addresses the UniModem / Logger crashes.

Q: Why does WMP temporarily pause when playing back clips online?

A: Paraphrasing Zeb: In some cases firewalls will block UDP traffic, which is required for "real-time" streaming playback. In those cases, WMP will be forced to use HTTP/TCP, which will cause us to buffer/pause in times of network congestion. Notably Connection Sharing (ICS) and Personal Firewall cause WMP to use TCP/IP instead of UDP. If you go to View:Statistics:Advanced, you can see what your actual bandwidth is, vs what is needed.

You may find that unchecking the UDP protocol in WMP's options may clear this up too.

Q: What port should be open on my intranet to allow users to connect to Windows Media content?

A: Port 1087. See the article about WM networking and firewalls here.

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WMP Installation Questions

Q: How do I reinstall WMP on Vista?

A: Sorry, there's no way to reinstall an OS subcomponent in Vista. Your only options are to do a System Restore or to reinstall Vista. If you manually attempt to re-register WMP, you will at the least break progressive download and will probably break the taskbar player too. Sorry.

If that really makes you desperately unhappy, reinstall Vista. If that for some reason is not possible, you can try this very much related fix. If that does not work and you are an expert user who is OK with potentially making the problem worse, set a System Restore point and try this unsupported 32bit-only fix. If even that doesn't work AND you are on a 32bit system installed to the C:\ drive, this even more unsupported 32bit C-drive-only fix may help. Note that all of the advice in this paragraph flies against Windows component design. Officially, you should be reinstalling Vista if you want to reinstall the player.

Most people also don't really understand what a corrupted component is versus other forms of corruption. The most common non-component corruption would be MediaLibrary corruption, networking cache corruption, and DRM cache corruption (each link goes to an associated fix). Those areas could not be fixed via component reinstall - they would have to be dealt with directly via the fixes mentioned.

Q: Why do I only see the Burn tab in the player on Vista?

A: If you install SatelliteTVforPC 2006 anywhere, it will install and register a private copy of "wmp.dll" version 10 onto the system. This is really bad. You will then need to reinstall the player in order to fix the issue. (If you're only seeing the Burn tab in the player, you're pretty much guaranteed that you've hit this issue.)
Because it is not possible to reinstall the player on Windows Vista, your best option is to reinstall Vista itself on top of itself. If you are on a 32bit Vista system, you can tentatively either follow this supported fix or use this unsupported fix to get you back to the right state, but this is not supported, no warranties are implied, and it is ONLY intended to fix you up if you have installed SatelliteTVforPC 2006 by accident.
If you have this problem due to ANY other software, please please speak up about what other bad software might be doing this.
If you have this problem due to SatelliteTVforPC 2006, PLEASE tell the people you got it from that that product has been pulled from market and they should not be selling/distributing it any longer.

Q: I get the message "wmp.dll version xx.x.x.xxxx expected, but version yy.y.y.yyyy is present" (or this same basic message occurs for wmploc.dll or wmplayer.exe)

A: On Windows Vista: Reboot your system. Then open cmd.exe as an administrator and then run "c:\windows\system32\unregmp2.exe /UpdateWMP" to fix this.

On all other Windows systems: Reboot your system and then run "c:\windows\inf\unregmp2.exe /UpdateWMP" to fix this.

Q: Why do I get the error message "This version of Windows Media Technologies is incompatible with this version of Windows" when I try to install Media Player?

A: If you still have the Windows Media Format 11 runtime listed in the system's Add/Remove Programs control panel, this behavior is by design. You must first uninstall the Windows Media Format 11 runtime before you can install Windows Media Player 10. <[? If you do not have the Windows Media Format 11 runtime present on your system, this article covers how to fix this. You can't get this message without system files being deleted or corrupted, so something is wrong with your system. Most likely wmploc.dll was deleted from %windir%\system32 . The installer will not continue if this file is not present.

You can fix this in the following fashions:
* Either a system restore back before the files were deleted OR a reversion of a previous system restore that caused this problem.
* An OS reinstall/repair using Repair mode (which I believe would require an SP2 disk?)
* Reversion back to SP1, reinstallation of WMP, upgrade back to SP2. Or reverting to SP1 and simply reinstalling SP2 should work too.

Q: How do I trouble-shoot a v11 player install error?

A: The core installer log file for WMP11 is %windir%\wmsetup.log . It also logs to wmfdist11.log (these are the detailed results for WMFDist11.exe), wmp11.log (these are the detailed results for WMP11.exe), and Wudf01000Inst.log (these are the detailed results for the UMDF portion of the install). The file updspapi.log is a log produced by update.exe that may be of interest. (And there's further data in c:\windows\updspapi.log too .) But, chiefly: wmsetup.log is your starting point.
In the file wmsetup.log, any actual install errors should be preceded by "ERROR: ". So you should look for "ERROR: " in the file. This should contain additional information of interest. What are these lines?

* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80004005": This is "Unspecified error." Typically this will be found in regards to validating the file signature on Urge.cab - this is not an error - you will note the next line saying that WinVerifyTrust worked. It is just an overzealous test being logged. If that is not the source of the error: Interpreting this would require a contextual analysis of the system's setup log.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x8000FFFF": This is "Catastrophic failure." This should only occur when the library is corrupt. Resetting the Media Library should get your player functional.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80070001": This is "Incorrect function." Interpreting this would require a contextual analysis of the system's setup log.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80070002": This is "The system cannot find the file specified." If this is in regards to a "WMC_CopyFile" failing for the two Netscape plug-in files, this is an ignorable error. If it's a different error, you would need to post your full setup log.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80070003": This is "The system cannot find the path specified." Interpreting this would require a contextual analysis of the system's setup log.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80070005": This is "Error: Access Denied." That means that the registry permissions on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WMPlayer.OCX or HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WMPlayer.OCX.7 are probably set wrong. I believe this is due to overzealous 3rd party anti-malware programs. You can fix this by deleting or renaming those registry keys. The WMP11 installer should be able to handle this without you having to worry about it. If it cannot, then you would need to look at the bottom of c:\windows\updspapi.log . That should tell you what registry key modification resulted in "Access is denied". You would need then to give access to that registry key... or at least rename it for the duration of WMP's install. Look for "Error 5" in the updspapi.log.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80070057": This is "One or more arguments are invalid." Interpreting this would require a contextual analysis of the system's setup log.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x800700b7": This is "Cannot create a file when that file already exists." This means that that update.exe install package is already installed to the system and cannot be reinstalled. To fix this:
1: Run Regedit.exe and browse to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\ExceptionComponents
2: Delete all the subkeys under the above key that have FriendlyName as "Windows Media Files".
3: Reinstall the player
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80070bc2": This is "The requested operation is successful. Changes will not be effective until the system is rebooted." This one is pretty obvious: reboot!
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x8007f00d": This is "Error: User Cancelled". One question is what is the file version for c:\windows\system32\spupdsvc.exe - in some 0x8007f00d cases, this file should have been copied by the install, but apparently was blocked by something on your system. If you rename that file, the install will likely work. That is only for some users. For other users, you would need to look at the setup log files to determine why update.exe is failing.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x8007f0da": This is "Error: Setup could not verify the integrity of the file update.inf". This indicates that either the install package was corrupted or their crypto services are out of date and need to be updated via Windows Update. So first make sure you're up to date on Windows Update, and if you are, then redownload the player install package and try again. Windows Update must be functional on your machine for the player to install.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x8007f205": This is "Error: Update already running". That means an update is running on your system. You must restart your system and then should be able to install. If that does not fix the problem, you must find what install is running on your system, finish that, and THEN run the player install.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x80096010": This is "The digital signature of the object did not verify." You need to get your system up to date at Windows Update and then reinstall.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x800b0004": This is "The subject is not trusted for the specified action." This probably means that you chose not to install the Urge or other service install cab, and thus represents a deliberate decision on your part and is not an error. If that's not the source of the error, then you need to get your system up to date at Windows Update and then reinstall.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0x800b0100": This is "No signature was present in the subject." If this is a failure to trust the Urge.cab file, it should be immediately followed by a success result. If that is not the source of the error, then you need to get your system up to date at Windows Update and then reinstall.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0xc0000005", this means that you have a library corruption, and that resetting your Media Library should fix you up.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0xc0000142": That is "Application failed to initialize properly". What process returned this error?
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0xc00d2afa": This is "The requested operation failed. Some cleanup will not complete until the system is rebooted." Setup failed for some unknown reason. You should reboot your system in order to finish moving temporary files. This error is not interesting by itself: the other errors in the setup log are what you should focus on.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0xc00d2afb": This is "The requested operation failed. The system will not function correctly until the system is rebooted." Setup failed for some unknown reason. You should reboot your system in order to finish moving files. This error is not interesting by itself: the other errors in the setup log are what you should focus on.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0xc00d2afd": This is "DRM Migration failed." Your player should be functional, but your DRM licenses were unable to be migrated.
* If your wmsetup.log contains error "0xc00d2afe": This is "Either skins or the playlists component install failed." Your player will be functional, but you will not have playlists. This is likely because the security privileges on the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Music" is set wrong - it needs to be writable.

If you set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer, "SetupLogLevel" to REG_DWORD value 0xFFFF, that will ensure you get full setup_wm.exe (wmsetup.log) logging.
If you set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup", "LogLevel", to REG_DWORD value 0x0000FF00 , that will ensure that you get full update.exe/setupapi.dll logging.

Q: How do I solve the error "Windows Media Player is not installed properly and must be reinstalled. Do you want to install the Player from the Microsoft Web site?"

A: On Vista, you should just need to reboot.
Otherwise, this error specifically means that your machine has had an abnormally large number of QFEs installed to it, which can cause the system catalog service to stop accepting (registering) further Microsoft installs. You should be able to solve this through a reinstall of Windows, although running "sfc /scannow" may get you working for the short term (? I don't recommend this: it actually should be causing significant problems, but some people have said it worked for them). Reinstalling WMP will actually likely NOT solve this, as the catalogs for WMP will likely not be able to be installed. This is not noticeable usually, but WMP actually validates this and thus lets you know about this system condition.

Q: I am using a Media Center 2002 system (identified by c:\windows\system32\ehome\ehshell.exe being version 5.1.2600.something). How do I install Windows Media Player 11 or Zune?

A: You should not do this. I put that block in because if you install the Windows Media Format 11 Runtime to your system (needed by both of those applications), that will break certain Media Center recordings. You can indeed hack your system to accomplish this, but it's a bad plan and you are taking your machine into your own hands. I repeat: this is a stupid plan that's going to break your system. If you don't care about Media Center, though... *shrug*

Q: How do I trouble-shoot a v10 or earlier player install error?

A: The installer for WMP7 and newer all log to %windir%\wmsetup.log . In that file, any actual install errors should be preceded by "ERROR: ". So you should look for "ERROR: " in the file. This should contain additional information of interest. What are these lines?

With the WMP10 installer, at this time I am aware of three potential classes of errors.
* A failure installing just the playlist files. In this case, you should be able to run "wmplayer.exe" fine and everything should be okay, except that your Auto Playlists and Sync Playlists will not be present. To fix this, you will need to correct the security permissions for %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Documents\My Music . Presumably somewhere along the way those got reset or NULLed.
* A failure registering the DRM dlls. Again, wmplayer.exe should be functional if you run it directly. In this case, DRM won't work for you, which should be related to permissions in your HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT registry.
* A general failure installing the INF. While WMP7-9 use my INF parser, WMP10 uses the msoobci/setupapi INF parser. If the INF fails to install, you'll find the logs for that failure located at %windir%\setupapapi.log . You would want to search for the name of the failing INF in that log. That should contain some additional info of interest. Note that I'd suspect that your failure here would probably again be permission based. My suspicion here without seeing your machine or knowing your logs would be that the permissions on HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer have been reset. There's a buggy version of some third party software that did this (removed permissions) for a while. If the error code in WMSetup.log is "0x800700b7", Suhail figured out this fix:
1: Run Regedit.exe and browse to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\ExceptionComponents
2: Delete all the subkeys under the above key that have FriendlyName as "Windows Media Files".
3: Reinstall the player

That should probably cover all the major ways a WMP10 install could fail. If you always get a message telling you that you need to reboot before you can start the player, you will need to delete the registry value "InstallResult" underneath HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Setup .

If the player says you cannot reinstall it, DON'T. A reinstall in that case would overwrite QFEs and/or break your ability to play your purchased files.

Q: I have a question about how to rollback from WMP10.

A: How to rollback from WMP10 to your previous version:
A: Go to the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel. If you are on Windows XP SP2, check "Show Updates".
B: Select "Windows Media Player 10" in order to rollback.

If that does not roll you back, turn off the WMP's Taskbar Player if you have it on, reinstall the player on top of the existing install of WMP10 (do not try to munge the WMP files by hand: that will just break your system- you will need to complete one extra reinstall in order to counteract that).
If you need to reboot, do so, and then again reinstall the player on top of the existing install. The rollback point will NOT be functional until you complete a reinstall of the player that does NOT require a reboot. At that point, the WMP10 rollback point in the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel should be functional. You should be able to use it to rollback WMP10. If WMP10 is still showing up at that point, you need to either use the System Restore point that WMP10 setup first created (if available) or again work on the reinstall/rollback front.

WMP10 also creates a System Restore point for you to use if you need it. If you had System Restore turned off, WMP10 showed you a message explaining that having System Restore turned off would disable your ability to roll back. While the above steps on rollback should allow you to rollback using the Add/Remove Programs method: System Restore shouldn't really be off.

You can't install WMP9 on top of WMP10 - don't bother - you're just wasting your time. You *have* to rollback first.
Don't try running the WMP10 INFs directly - they are not AdvPack nor SetupAPI INFs, so running them directly in either install or uninstall fashions will break rollback.

Q: I have a question about the WM Player 9 Series installer or uninstaller...

A: If the Windows Media Player install fails, you can look for more information in the file "c:\windows\wmsetup.log". In this file will be lines beginning with "ERROR: ". Those lines help indicate what the error was.

Note that the WMP9 installer automatically enters reinstall mode if you install it on top of itself - that's the best way to do a repair. It is counterproductive to remove the player if you intend on reinstalling it.
If you want to roll back to your previous player, read the How To here. If you had System Restore turned off, you can still run a Repair of Windows XP. Note first that you should NEVER disable System Restore if you are not the most bad-ass system jockey in the world. I do this stuff for a living, and I would not turn off System Restore if you paid me to. It is NOT worth it to turn off System Restore.

Anyways- to repair Windows XP:

• Boot from the Windows XP CD. In order to do this, you will likely need to enter your computer's BIOS and set it to boot from CD. If you are not comfortable doing this, contact product support to help walk you through this.
• Do not choose Repair when it is offered. That will take you to the Repair Console and you don't want to be there.
• Choose Upgrade
• The installer will find your existing XP installation and offer to repair it.
• Now you choose Repair.
• Let it do its thing (don't use Dynamic Update, though).
• No loss in settings, programs or data. You will lose any patches/updates, though.

If for some reason you don't have your Windows XP CD (?!?), you need to get a Windows XP CD.
It may be possible to install Windows XP SP1 in Full Install mode from a Windows XP SP1 CD and that should replace the Windows Media Player 9 Series with Windows Media Player (8) for Windows XP.

To repair Windows Me:
If you're *still* having problems after system restore, the following should work for you-

• Download mp71.exe (the Windows Media Player 7.1 installer - you'll need to search for it a tiny bit) from the Windows Media download site.
• Rename the file "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" to "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.bak"
• Rename the file "c:\windows\system\wmploc.dll" to "c:\windows\system\wmploc.bak"
• Run "mp71.exe" to install WMP7.1

On a test system, this appeared to undo any damage System Restore had done to Windows Media Player. However, since I can't personally reproduce System Restore troubles reliably, your mileage may vary. If all else fails "mplayer2.exe" (WMP6) should still be working on the system.

If you STILL are not having any luck, your best bets are:

• Make sure you've addressed the known compatibility bug-aboos.
• Work with the people in the microsoft.public.windowsmedia.player newsgroup (available on the msnews.microsoft.com news server if your server doesn't have it - you may want to refresh your newsgroups if you don't see it) to identify and resolve this issue, either now or in the final release.
• Upgrade to a later OS. Frankly, yes, Windows XP *is* better.
• Run "mplayer2.exe" (WMP6, still on your system) as necessary.
• Contact technical support.

Note that after you rollback the 9 Series player to the v7 player, the "File Types" dialog will not work within the v7 player. This is because the registry value "MIME Types" is too long under the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Groups\Video\ASF". If you change that value data to be "application/x-mplayer2 video/x-ms-asf video/x-ms-asf-plugin video/x-ms-wmx application/x-ms-wmd application/x-ms-wmz", the File Types dialog should then work. If you're not comfortable editing this yourself, run this reg file to fix the "File Types" dialog.
A couple people have additionally reportedly had trouble on Win9x systems with sound after uninstalling the player. If that's the case, this will fix you up.

Q: How do I repair WMP8 on Windows XP?

A: Assuming you have exhausted all other options, the following steps will partially repair WMP8. These steps are wholly unsupported by Microsoft, and only mentioned by me because it *is* the only way you'd be able to reinstall WMP8 - note that this will likely not fix many/any bugs, but if you're desperate... Run:

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection InstallWMP64 132 c:\windows\inf\mplayer2.inf
(Point it to the Windows XP CD)
rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection InstallWMP7 132 c:\windows\inf\wmp.inf
(Point it to the Windows XP CD)

and then Restart your machine (absolutely mandatory: almost every action done internally here is delayed until reboot). [Note that "c:\windows" should be replaced with your windows directory - it will be "c:\winnt" on computers upgraded from Windows 2000 or NT4. Note also that all command lines are case-sensitive.]
As an alternative, you may be better off using Windows XP's cool System Restore functionality. It's on the Start Menu under "Help and Support".
As a FURTHER alternative, Evey points out you can try to repair Windows XP itself (which will more fully repair WMP for XP along with it)-
To repair Windows XP:

• Boot from the Windows XP CD.
• Do not choose Repair when it is offered. That will take you to the Repair Console and you don't want to be there.
• Choose Upgrade
• The installer will find your existing XP installation and offer to repair it.
• Now you choose Repair.
• Let it do its thing.
• No loss in settings, programs or data. You will lose any patches/updates, though.

Q: How do I uninstall the player? I need to fix it!

A: I'm not sure where the Myth of Uninstall was created. By the "Myth of Uninstall", I mean the notion that uninstalling something is the way to fix it. But it's fairly incorrect, so...:

if you are trying to fix the player, simply reinstall it over the top of itself. If you are using Windows Media Player 9, then you will typically find the installer (mpsetup.exe or mpsetupxp.exe) you used in "c:\program files\windows media player\installer", and can use that to reinstall the player. Otherwise, go to Microsoft's download site and redownload and reinstall the player.

If for some reason you are in the "opposing" camp and firmly feel that Uninstalling first is beneficial (and it isn't, at least for WMP), you MUST be careful to tell the user in question to reinstall TWICE. The first reinstall gets the uninstalled components reinstalled, and the second reinstall gets everything reinstalled. I think it's backwards to uninstall/reinstall, but ... whatever. I'll just try to educate here. :\

Finally, the most important fundamental problem with Uninstalling As A Solution is the notion that somehow a reinstall will magickally fix the issue. While this may be true in an extreme minority of cases, the reality is that WMP functions like a tier in the game Jenga: it is reliant on the components underneath it functioning correctly in order for WMP itself to be stable. So (uninstalling and) reinstalling WMP until you're blue in the face won't fix a user profile issue, won't fix an MDAC or library corruption issue, won't fix a video card or sound card driver issue, won't fix an external codec corruption issue, etc. (Uninstalling/)Reinstalling as a problem-solving solution is a pretty lazy approach to solving the problem at hand, and shouldn't be something you'd really expect to work. Sure, you can try it if it makes you happy, but ... don't expect it to magickally solve the problem. Reinstall the player over the top of itself once, and if you are fixed up: awesome! If not... like I said, reinstallation isn't a very effective solution, given that the majority of issues you'd encounter with WMP would be completely external to WMP and thus not remotely tweaked or touched by WMP's reinstallation.

If I still haven't been able to dissuade you from uninstalling first, the Uninstall Steps are mentioned in the player's release notes, and also covered in the questions above this one.

Q: I need to uninstall and then reinstall WMP (or newer) in order to fix an issue...

A: Uninstalling and then reinstalling software to "fix" problems with it tends to be overkill. Not as huge overkill as reinstalling the operating system, but still... a bad general practice.

In WMP's case, downloading the WMP installer and running the WMP7 (or newer) install on *top* of an existing install and choosing Reinstall All is the single best trouble-shooting method for WMP. Note that WMP9 automatically enters Reinstall All mode when you install it on top of itself, so it doesn't expose the Reinstall All button any more.

(The problem with uninstalling/reinstalling WMP is that most of what usually goes wrong with WMP's world is not contained within WMP: bad drivers, incorrect registry/network settings, etc. The Reinstall All mode won't change that, but it's the most effective way of ensuring that *everything* WMP knows how to set up is set up correctly.)

Q: How do I distribute my codecs to users in my intranet?

A: WMP does not directly support this: you could either deploy them via SMS (or equivalent) or bundle them into your WMP Enterprise Deployment package (see next question).

Q: How do I install WMP10 (or newer) in unattended mode?

A: This should answer all of your 9 Series questions. For Enterprise deployment, this EDP should be what you want. (If you contact product support directly, they have an EDP designed to support version 11. To my knowledge this has not been generally released yet.)

For older versions: first you must have a license to redistribute it. This page details how to get the license.
Once you've gotten a license, you'd want to use the case-sensitive command-line:

(installpackage.exe) /Q:A /R:N /C:"setup_wm.exe /Q:A /R:N"

You will need to check the result of the install process to determine if you need to reboot or not. Check:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Setup, "InstallResult"

after setup. This should be a REG_DWORD value. If this value is set to 0xC00D2AFB (NS_E_REBOOT_REQUIRED) or 0xD2AF9 (NS_S_REBOOT_REQUIRED), you will need to reboot. If the value is 0xD2AF8 (NS_S_REBOOT_RECOMMENDED), then that means that either some further file clean-up will appear on reboot (no need to account for) or that a device driver has been installed and will not be functional until system reboot (which is of course only of interest if you need a device driver, such as the Adaptec/Roxio CD Burning Plugin). [This information is also applicable to WMP7 setup, but driver-related reboots are treated as REQUIRED reboots in WMP7 setup, which is why a reboot is pretty much mandatory.]

Q: I wish to deploy the Windows Media Player in an intranet and block XXX feature (radio, Media Guide, etc). How do I do so?

A: The easiest thing to do is to use the Group Policy editor (gpedit.msc) to lock the user into a skin of your choice using the "Set and lock skin" policy. This eliminates access to the Media Guide and Radio Tuner from within the player.

If you're a user locked into skin mode - a tweaking program called "Fresh UI" can lock you into skin mode using the Policy setting sometimes, so be aware of that.

Q: Why does WMP not show up when I run it? I only get an icon for it on the task bar.

A: Start WMP, then right-click on the taskbar icon for WMP, then select Move from those options. Click the left and up arrows on your keyboard until WMP comes back onscreen - it is simply offscreen at this point. If a list of options do not come up, you are in skin mode in the player. Browse to c:\program files\windows media player\skins and double-click on a skin file - that should open up in the player, and the player should then be visible again.

Q: Why do I get the error "UNREGMP2.EXE file is linked to missing export ADVAPI32.DLL:SetNamedSecurityInfoW" when trying to install the player?

A: Your advapi32.dll file has been corrupted by rogue software on your box (I believe it is now version "4.71.0118.0", which is not the version it is supposed to be). In order to fix this, you will need to go the Add/Remove Control Panel, select the "Internet Explorer" option in this list, and then run the Repair option that it will offer. At that point you will then need to reinstall the Media Player, but you should be good to go from that point.

Q: How do I make Windows Media Player my default player for a file type?

A: On Vista: Go to the Start Menu and use the Default Programs control panel.

On XP: Go to WMP's Tools:Options:File Types menu dialog. Choose which file types you want WMP to be the default player for, then click apply. There are also articles on this for WMP11 and WMP7, although the same steps generally apply.
Certain web pages force you to use WMP6 in them. However, WMP9 and newer takes over the WMP6 embedded playback, so if you wish to not use WMP6 in web pages anymore, WMP9 or newer is the other option available. Simply install it and WMP6 will stop being embedded.

Q: How do I make Windows Media Player not be my default player for a file type?

A: On Vista: Use the Start Menu's Default Programs dialog to associate to your new chosen player.
On either Vista or XP, you can also the Set Programs and Defalts control panel, although that can be overkill. It's probably easiest to go to WMP's Tools:Options:File Types menu dialog. Unselect the file types you don't want WMP to be the default player for, then click apply. These settings persist between installs: once you've made changes here, WMP will no longer take the association unless you ask it to. (This dialog is at Tools:Options:Formats in older versions of WMP.)

Q: Why does some other player always play back the files I want to play back with WMP or some other player?

A: That usually means that the other application is taking back over the association. If giving the association to WMP doesn't work, you would either need to turn off some setting in the other application's Options menu or uninstall that other application.

Q: Why did "Add to Playlist" disappear for MP3 files?

A: Some unknown recent versions of MusicMatch Jukebox and RealPlayer are munging the registry. Going to WMP's Tools:Options:File Types dialog and unchecking then rechecking "MP3 File" should fix the issue. In some cases, this interference on their part will also break multimedia file download, but again the same suggestion should fix that problem too.

Q: Why do my sound (WAV) files auto-play when I right click on them?

A: (thanks to daxe) Open PicaView32, go to Options:General in that app, and uncheck "Play WAV files", and you should be back to normal.

Q: Where can I find mplayer2.exe / WMP6.4?

A: If WMP7 (or newer) is installed, use Start Menu:Run and enter "mplayer2.exe" to access it. You can then use WMP6's View:Options:Formats dialog to reassociate files back to WMP6.

Q: How do I change which language of WMP that I have installed? I installed the wrong language.

A: Download WMP for the language of your choice and choose Reinstall All mode, installing it on top of your existing install. You may need to update the desktop shortcut yourself, but everything else should be fixed. If this still does not fix your problem, find "wmploc.dll" on your system, rename that (to "wmploc.bak" or something similar), and then again reinstall WMP in Reinstall All mode.

Q: Why doesn't Launchcast work on my system now that I'm using WMP9/10?

Q: Why does the player show up as a random bunch of controls and then black space in web pages?

A: If and only if this page fails (and looks screwed up), but this one works, then what has happened is that the backwards compatibility for WMP6 is failing.
In order to fix this, run the following commands from either the "Run" prompt or a cmd.exe window: " regsvr32 jscript.dll ", " regsvr32 wmpdxm.dll ", " regsvr32 wmpasf.dll ", " regsvr32 wmp.dll ", and then you should be fixed.

If that does not work, you should be able to fix this by simply running "regsvr32.exe wmp.dll". If not, running "regsvr32.exe msdxm.ocx" should fix this by restoring the WMP6-flavor of embedding. (Run "regsvr32.exe wmpdxm.dll" to undo that.) (This should only occur if mplayer2.exe was running at the time of your initial WMP9/10 install.)

Q: Why am I getting the Media Guide in a foreign language? How do I change the default language?

A: (thanks to John Cupak) The Media Guide uses IE's default language initially, and then sets a cookie indicating your language preference. Delete that cookie and the language will reset.

Q: Why can't I change the player install location?

A: An OS upgrade over a WMP installed to a custom location would result in WMP not working post OS-install. This is a limitation in the OS installer that WMP setup has to be compatible with.

Q: What's the version history on WMP?

A: See the official write-up.

Q: Why is version 7.01.00.3055 called 7.1?

A: It just is. Same as version 7.10 being ... 7.1 .

Q: How do I launch WMP7 (or newer) from Internet Keyboard Pro (using IntelliType 2.x)?

A: If your WMP7 is in "c:\program files\windows media player\wmplayer.exe", run this reg file. Otherwise, save the reg file locally and update it with the path your WMP is located at. WMP8 and newer should correctly register for this automatically.

Q: Can I force an automatic download of WMP from my web page? (Also: Is codebase download supported in V7?)

A: No. You could point the codebase tag at a known player binary download location, but I'd highly recommend against it. There is no longer any CABs available for any version of Windows Media Player.

Q: Can I open multiple instances of WMP?

A: You can actually run the Zune Media Player at the same time, which is about the same thing as two instances of WMP.
But for WMP7 (or newer), no. You can either embed multiple instances of WMP7 (or newer) in a web page (I've supplied a page you can do this with here) or open "mplayer2.exe" (WMP6 - it's already on your box if you have WMP7) multiple times [WMP6's View:Options:Player menu option for "Open a new player for each media file played" must be checked]. Or you can use something like Morisoft's AV Mix Master, which opens multiple instances of WMP within one interface.

For Media Player for XP (aka WMP8) ONLY (no other version)... there's an unsupported ability to do this that is fixed (removed) in WM Player 9 Series. Launch one instance of MP4XP, then right-click on the MP4XP icon and choose "Run As". You can launch numerous copies of MP4XP this way. This is not supported, though, so try not to do anything too crazy. Generally, you'll only be able to play content that was previously in your Media Library with any additional player, and you will not be able to set player options under the Tools:Option menu.

(For the curious: multiple stand-alone players were turned off in WMP7+ due to library and device contention. Don't ask me, that's just the Rationale.)

Q: I'm getting a "kmode_exception_not_handled" blue screen installing WMP.

A: Uninstall DivX 3.x (which is warez, btw) and run the install again.

Q: Why did the player install to "C:\Progra~1\Windo~1"? This causes a crash in wmpcore.dll...

A: Some 16bit technology in the Windows OS install you ran (usually WinMe) set a registry key to an invalid value. Change registry entry "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer", value "Installation Directory" and "Installation DirectoryLFN" to valid values. They should look like "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player". If that is indeed where your player is installed, you can run this reg file to fix the problem.
The crash occurs because you only got half of the player update. Either reinstall or copy the files by hand from "C:\Progra~1\Windo~1" to "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player".

Q: How do I determine what version of WMP I have?

A: See this article.

Q: How can I detect what version of WMP a user has via HTML?

A: See my sample on how to do this or the KB here.

Q: How can I detect what version of WMP a user has via my application?

A: This is documented here.
How you want to do this look-up really depends on what you're trying to do. Different functionality is supported in various versions of the player. The simplest detection method is to look up: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components . Then, for WMP6, look at key "{22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95}". Or for WMP7 (or newer), look at key "{6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6}". Under either of these keys, if IsInstalled is set to 0x1, you can then safely use the "Version" string here as the version of WMP that is installed. Note that, yes, you can have WMP6 installed alongside a later version of WMP.

Q: Setup thinks I don't have DCOM installed.

A: If you PROMISE you have DCOM installed, run this and setup will think you have DCOM installed. Note that WMP7 version 7.0.0.1956 and later do not have this check, so you can also just redownload WMP from the web site. If you're not sure if you have DCOM installed, you can get it for Win9x here.

Q: I'm getting the error "Windows Media update notifier is currently unable to detect available updates, please try again later" during a player install. How do I fix this?

A: WMP7 (and newer) setup uses the IE XML parser. You may be either missing "c:\windows\system\msxml.dll" or it may have become unregistered. Typically reinstalling IE will fix this issue, or you can manually run:

regsvr32.exe msxml.dll

from the Start:Run menu, which should be the quickest possible way to fix the issue. Note that the WMP7.1 installer tries to reregister msxml.dll if it detects this problem, so if you hit this issue with the WMP7.1 or later installer, you'll need to reinstall Internet Explorer.

If you can't view this, then your IE XML parser is really broken. WMP setup uses a slightly older XML parser, though, so if the new IE XML parser is working but the old one isn't, then you'd be able to view that XML page, but WMP setup still wouldn't be able to detect updates until the old XML parser was fixed. A Repair of Internet Explorer may fix that up, or as Jason points out you can use the IE XML download.
There is also a write-up of this here.

Q: Why does WMP setup ask to reboot after the install?

A: Because it installs device drivers. Alternatives would have been to alert the user that that new device driver isn't usable until after restart (which is the approach taken in WMP for XP and newer setups) or to shut down and restart the device - which isn't necessarily possible/clean.

Which installing WM Player 9 Series on Windows XP, certain files can be in use by the shell which thus require WMP to reboot. If you wish to avoid this reboot, log out and back in previous to installing.
WMP9 and newer should not require a reboot in other conditions, provided that WMP is not running at the point of install.

Q: Why does setup fail if Zip Magic is installed?

A: See this page for the work-around. The explanation here is that WMP setup is expecting "npds.zip" to be a file, and instead it is a folder due to Zip Magic.

Q: Why does WMP crash in the middle of setup?

A: You're running old NVidia drivers: either get newer ones or reinstall the ones you have.

Q: Why can't I install WMP while running Terminal Server in Application Mode?

A: The Windows directory location is incorrect. You need to switch to Remote Administration Mode to install software.

Q: How do I get WMP 7.1 to run on NT4?

Q: How do I get WMP 7.1 to run on Win95?

A: These operating systems aren't supported. Be sane and use WMP6 on those OSs.

Q: Where can I find a player for () OS?

A: The currently maintained players can be found here. You'll find players for Windows, WinCE, MacOS, and Solaris there. There's the old Win 3.1 player here floating around somewhere, and an old Linux x86 ELF player here

Q: I installed WMP while running McAfee Virus Scanner and things don't work right...

A: Turn off the Virus Scan then reinstall WMP.

Q: How do I disable Auto-Update (aka AutoUpgrade)?

A: See the KB article here.

Q: I liked having different icons for each file type. Can I get that back?

A: Okay. Run this and then run:
     c:\windows\inf\unregmp2.exe /AddNewExtensions
(this is case-sensitive, and the text "c:\windows" may need to be changed to the Windows directory for your system).

Q: How do I get rid of the "Play as Playlist", "Add to Playlist" and "Enqueue"/"Add to Now Playing List" options WMP likes to use in the shell?

A: Rename or delete the registry keys "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F1B9284F-E9DC-4e68-9D7E-42362A59F0FD" ("Add to Playlist", "Add to Burn List", "Add to Sync List", and "Enqueue") and "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8DD448E6-C188-4aed-AF92-44956194EB1F}" ("Copy to Audio CD") and "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{CE3FB1D1-02AE-4a5f-A6E9-D9F1B4073E6C}" ("Play as Playlist"). It is not recommended that you do this. You will need to reinstall the player on top of itself if you want to restore these registry keys.

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CD Playback Questions

Q: The audio crackles and pops or 'skips' during CD playback.

A: Turn on Error Correction in WMP's Tools:Options:CD Audio menu [this is under WMP's Tools:Options:Devices menu for the specific drive in WMP8 and newer]. If that doesn't help, switch to using Analog playback using WMP's Tools:Options:CD Audio menu (this is under Tools:Options:Devices on WMP8 and newer). Note that this will disable visualizations (unless you are using Windows XP). See the list of CD-ROM drives with known playback issues and see if your drive is on the list. If subsequently you don't hear audio, look here. Additionally, if your drive is really not happy, turning on error correction with digital playback will actually cause skipping.

Q: Why does WMP's CD audio or audio sound so bad/goofy/staticy?.

A: Turn off SRS WowSound and/or the EQ (most likely culprit) from within the Now Playing pane. On most people's computers it hopefully makes the sound sound Better, but on some... it doesn't.

Q: Why does my computer lock up when I attempt to play CDs with WMP (or the computer reports an I/O conflict)?

Q: Why does WMP crash with internal application error on my Win9x system?

A: Uncheck "Use Digital Playback" for that drive in WMP's Tools:Options:Devices menu (this is under Tools:Options:CD Audio on older versions of WMP): your CD-ROM driver doesn't support this and does bad things when we try. If that still doesn't help, go into your CD-ROM driver properties (to get this, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, (select Hardware on Windows XP), select Device Manager, select the "CD-ROM" or "DVD/CD-ROM drives" listing, select the drive in question, select Properties) and uncheck "Use DMA" - and/or "Enable Digital Audio for this Device". A Win9x OS may hang right then (and if it does, let me know , but the setting should be set... and you'd want to check with your provider for updated drivers even after this work-around. Microsoft has an article on further trouble-shooting here for Win9x, and here for Windows XP.

Q: I can edit the track information for my CD, but how do I update the CD album name and artist?

A: You need to use the "Get Names" option ("Find Album Info" option in v9) in the CD Audio pane (Copy From CD pane in WMP8+) in order to do this. (In WMP10 you can edit all these fields within the Rip pane.)

Q: WMP is showing the wrong content information about my CD. How do I fix this?

A: WMP7 (or newer) recognizes tracks via a unique ID on the compact disc associated to metadata that AMG (All Music Guide) maintains. When you update this information via the "Get Names"/"Find Album Info" option in the CD Audio (or Copy From CD) pane, that information will be used to correct the database in the future. AMG says here that it takes about six weeks or so for information to be added. If you are an artist or producer, they take direct submissions via an e-mail address on that page, so go send them mail. :)
(And yes, this stuff does get used - I've verified the addition to the database of about ~200 CDs I put metadata in for.)

Q: Why won't WMP update the Album Info?

A: If WMP won't update the album info, the possible fixes are:
* If the Media Guide shows up in WMP, then that's good. If not, WMP can't connect to the metadata servers and you need to fix WMP's connection settings.
* If clearing IE's Temporary Files cache using IE's settings menu helps restore this, your IE cache was corrupt.
* If running "regsvr32.exe wmp.dll" fixes this, you probably have a Dell.
* If player library corruption is blocking this, then resetting your library will fix you up.
* If it's an user profile corruption, then a second/new user account on the system should be able to retrieve metadata. You can then copy that new user's library on top of your library and you should be good to go.

Q: Why is there gap between tracks when playing back my seamless DJ mix (or classical) CD?

A: WMP7 (or newer) uses digital playback, which introduces this. Switching to use Analog Playback within WMP's Tools:Options:Devices for that drive (this is under Tools:Options:CD Audio on older versions of WMP) menu will eliminate this for CD playback. This gapping issue is fixed for CDs in Media Player 8 for Windows XP. Gapping for other core file types is generally fixed for Windows Media Player 9 Series, which introduces cross-fading on Windows XP.
Note that this addresses playback, and not burning CDs.
If you want gapless CDs, that requires Disc-At-Once (DAO) or such, which WMP doesn't natively support but other software does. For example, the Nero Fast CD-Burning Plug-in for Windows Media Player 9 Series (ONLY) allows you to burn gapless CDs. If that doesn't meet your needs, use the stand-alone Nero or Roxio CD burning software, both of which support WMA and DAO.

As regards CDText: WMP can not read CDText nor can it normally burn CDText. However, CDs burnt with the Nero Fast CD-Burning Plug-in will include CDText. :) Or you can install this CDText plug-in if you want WMP to be able to generally read CDText.

Q: Why doesn't my CD headphone jack let me hear audio when I use WMP to play a CD?

A: The headphone jack is only live during analog playback. In order to make this work, you'd need to switch WMP to use Analog Playback instead of digital playback: you can change this in WMP's Tools:Options:Devices settings for that drive (this is under Tools:Options:CD Audio on older versions of WMP). Or plug your headphones into the soundcard's output plug.

Q: Why won't WMP support digital playback on my CD-ROM drive?

A: First, you'd need DMA/digital audio extraction turned on. Second, WMP tests the quality of the digital read. If the CD-ROM is giving a dirty read - spewing too many errors into the data feed - WMP will reject digital playback on that drive. Some players are more accepting of bad reads, but continuing to read digitally from a dirty source can result in very nasty errors, and as such WMP plays it safe and disallows digital reads from dirty source CD-ROM drives. You may simply have a bad drive.
Also, see the following question...

Q: Why won't WMP support digital playback on my CD-ROM drive if I change its drive letter?

A: Brief investigation seems to indicate that this is a bug in Win9x when multiple CD-ROM drives are installed. Let Windows decide the drive letter and you'll be fine. Alternatively, Barry Watzman sez that Adaptec Easy CD Creator, Music Match Jukebox (which rips to WMA), and Audio Grabber all support digital ripping in this configuration. [Supposedly DAEMON Tools also causes digital playback to fail, because it also changes the CD-ROM drive letter.]

Q: WM Player 9 Series's HDCD playback doesn't work on my drive.

A: On some cards HDCD will not work if hardware acceleration is turned off.

Q: Why is WMP the only app that plays CDs correctly on my box?

A: Your analog CD playback is probably broken. Usually this is because the tiny little wire that connects the back of the CD-ROM drive to the motherboard has fallen out. They're really fragile that way.

Q: How do I make CDs AutoPlay / not AutoPlay (aka AutoStart)?

A: See this web page for details on how to do this for every OS but Windows 2000.
To >disable auto-play of CD's in Windows 2000, do the following:
1. Go to the start menu
2. Open a new Microsoft Management Console by running "mmc" (without the quotation marks) at a command line.
3. On the Console menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.
4. Click Add to display the installed snap-ins.
5. After pressing "add" look for the Group Policy snap-in and click ADD
6. Click Finish
7. Click Close
8. Click OK
9. Expand the Local Computer Policy to the following: "\Computer Configuration\Administrative templates\System"
10. Double-click on Disable Autoplay
11. Choose Enabled
12. Apply the change
13. Press OK

Note: If you just want to change to a different player for AutoPlay, either go to WMP's Tools:Options:Formats/File Types menu and unselect AudioCD, or go to My Computer:Tools:Folder Options:File Types, and change Audio CD to open with your favorite CD Player.

In Windows XP, you can update the AutoPlay tasks by:
1. Open My Computer
2. Right-click on the drive in question and select "Properties"
3. Go to the "AutoPlay" tab and select what AutoPlay action you would like

Stephen points out that on Windows XP, you can also turn AutoInsert Notification on or off. AutoInsert Notification is what tells software that there is a new CD in the drive (vs AutoPlay, which is What Do We Do With It). To change the AutoInsert Notification (which I recommend you always leave ON)-
===
1. Click Start, click Run, type "regedit" (without the quotation marks) in the Open box, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate and click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom
3. To enable automatically running CD-ROMs, change the Autorun value to 1. To disable automatically running CD-ROMs, change the Autorun value to 0 (zero).
4. Restart your computer.
===
If AutoPlay options are not visible on Windows XP, per Doug Knox-

Go to Start, Run and enter SERVICES.MSC
Scroll down to Shell Hardware Detection. Ensure that this service is Started and set to Automatic.

If that's set, check the Group Policy Editor - run "gpedit.msc", go to Local Computer Policy:Computer Configuration:Administrative Templates:System and make sure the "Turn off Autoplay" policy is set to "Not Configured".

If you're still having problems, find the TweakUI power toy and use that - that has some extra little AutoPlay options.
Vance points out that you can simply hold down the left shift key for 5-10 seconds after you insert the CD to disable AutoPlay temporarily.

Q: Why is the CD Audio playlist not refreshing when I insert a new CD? It only refreshes when I restart WMP...

Q: Why does the player not recognize a new CD when I put it in? It only refreshes when I restart WMP.

A: You've turned off AutoInsert Notification, which WMP uses to detect the newly inserted disc. Turning AutoPlay back on should fix this. (I believe both SoundBlaster and VMWare turn this off... if that's what happened to you, you should contact their support and ask 'em not to do this...)

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CD Ripping (recording from) Questions

Q: How do I stop WMP from automatically ripping my audio CDs?

A: If you have already unchecked "Rip CD when inserted" on WMP's Tools:Options:Rip Music and it's still ripping, then go to Windows Explorer. Right-click on the CD/DVD drive in question. Select Properties. Select the AutoPlay tab. On that tab, pick the Music CD dropdown item, and change the "Action to Perform" to anything other than "Rip CD". (Thanks to Neil for this.)

Q: I want to rip at a WMA bitrate higher than 192kbps. How do I do this?

A: Set WMARecordRate under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences to whatever value you want. The UI won't show you that you're using that in the Rip tab, but it'll be at that value.

Q: Where can I buy an MP3 encoder for WMP for Windows XP (or WMP9) to encode MP3s with?

A: This page lists some options. That's the URL you get shuffled to when you click WMP's Tools:Options:Copy Music menu dialog's "Click here for MP3 information" button. Or just upgrade to WMP10, which includes a built-in MP3 encoder.

Note that due to Thompson-FhG's licensing of MP3, you are NOT likely going to find a free MP3 encoder. LAME may have something in the works, but any other package claiming to be 'free' is likely pirated software.

Q: I am using WMP10 and cannot encode to MP3 (specifically MP3 at 128kbps). Why do I get error 0xc00d0faa ("Windows Media Player cannot copy the file...")?

A: The work-around is to go to WMP's Tools:Options:Rip Music menu and select anything other than 128kbps in the drop-down.
The fix is to delete the registry value "LowrateSample" under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Settings\Mp3Encoding . If that value does not exist, then you'll want to make that the "PreferredCodecPath" at that location is pointing to "l3codecp.acm". If both of those check out, then you'll want to switch to a different bitrate. If the value of "PreferredCodecPath" is "l3codeca.acm", that is WRONG. It should never be that ever. l3codecp.acm is the correct setting for WMP10.

Q: How do I get WMP to rip at 96kbps MP3?

A: Set one of the "Rate" values at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Settings\MP3Encoding to 96k.

Q: Is WM Player 9 Series's "Windows Media Audio" backwards compatible with WMP7?

A: Yes. It's the same bitstream, but provides ~20% better quality. The other codecs ("Windows Media Audio (variable-bitrate)" and "Windows Media Audio lossless") are not backward compatible and will require the user to be connected to the Internet so that they can download a new Windows Media Audio codec. See this for more information.

Q: Why do I get the error "The system cannot find the path specified." (0x80070003) or "The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect." when trying to record (rip) from an Audio CD?

A: The registry key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences
value "CDRecordpath" got corrupted. Go to WMP's Tools:Options:CD Audio menu option, and fix the path, and make sure you click Apply when done. Note that the path may look correct, but you should ensure you click Apply anyways ( uncheck and recheck a checkbox on this page to get Apply to enable itself).

If that doesn't work, follow these steps.

Also note that you can't copy from CD using the 9 Series player over a remote terminal server connection.

Q: What's the benefit of CD Digital Recording?

A: WMP can do this faster than real-time and you don't pick up any noise from other audio sources on your sound mixer.

Q: Why isn't there any audio in the tracks I ripped from my CDs using analog ripping? I don't like silent files...

A: Either you have DMA *on* in Device Manager or your CD (or DVD) drive's analog audio cable is not connected. [On Win9x, DMA is set on the Properties:Settings dialog tab of your CD-ROM drive in Device Manager. On WinNT (2000/XP), this is set under Device Manager:IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers:Primary IDE Channel:Advanced Settings.] Within WMP, the "Analog" (vs. Digital) setting is in WMP's Tools:Options:Devices menu option, in the Properties for the CD device in question.

If you're getting background noise, mute the Line In and Microphone input in your system's volume settings.

If none of this helps - your best options are to either try an upgrade to Windows XP (better CD handling and drivers are found there) or to try a different CD-ROM drive.

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DRM (Digital Rights Management) Questions

Q: I get the message "Windows Media Player cannot play the protected file because a security upgrade is required. Do you want to download the security upgrade?", but nothing happens.

A: If you are using WMP11, you should be able to view your "Indiv Version" under WMP's Help:About:Technical Support Information menu dialog. This should be 2.8.0.1 or later. If it is not, you can run (exactly, case-sensitive):
On XP:     %SystemRoot%\inf\unregmp2.exe /PerformIndiv
On Vista:     %SystemRoot%\system32\unregmp2.exe /PerformIndiv
from the Start menu's "Run" prompt. Then start WMP and try the content again.

If that still does not work (or you are using an earlier version of WMP), your DRM cache is likely corrupted. You can possibly fix this via resetting your DRM store (step one is probably not relevant to you). This will lose any established licenses, though, which you would then need to reacquire from your license/content provider. You would then need to attempt to Individualize again, either through the web page or unregmp2.

Because this is destructive, if you cannot Individualize (the problem here), you are far better off contacting actual support.

Q: Why can I only play files I rip back on the computer I ripped them to, and not on another computer on the network (for example)?

A: This limitation is because of the DRM applied to the file, which licensed the file solely for your usage on that computer. To turn DRM off for all content you create in the future, go to WMP7's Tools:Options:CD Audio and uncheck "Enable Personal Rights Management" (this is under Tools:Options:Copy Music, "Protect Content" under newer versions of WMP), which will result in DRM-free content for all content ripped from that point forward.

Generally, I'd simply recommend turning DRM off - going to WMP's Tools:Options:Copy Music and unchecking "Protect Music" - and then rerecording the CDs in question with DRM turned off. After all, even if you recovered the files, they'd *still* be DRMd, and there seems to be no reason for that.

Q: I can no longer access my DRM'd (protected) content...

A: If you backed up your licenses, restore your licenses. If not - or if your license store is corrupt - then you'll want/need to reencode the content. Regardless, I'd recommend reencoding the files with DRM turned *off* - see above for how to turn it off.

Q: I'm getting error 0xc00d11d6, 0xc00d2751 or 0xc00d2754 trying to play back my DRM'd content.

A: Look here for 0xc00d2751 or here for 0xc00d2754.

Q: Why isn't my content transcoded when I transfer it to my portable device?

A: The file you are trying to copy to your portable device may be protected. A protected file is a digital media file that is secured with a license to prevent illegal distribution.

When transferring to a portable device, the Player cannot convert protected content to other encoding formats (for example, from WMA to MP3) or to other bit rates (for example, from 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 64 Kbps). When transferring to a portable device, the Player can only convert unprotected content to other formats and bit rates.

Please also note that if you had hacked the WMP10 installer in order to install it onto Windows Server 2003, DRM may be broken on that machine until you format it, even after the upgrade to Windows Server 2003 SP1.

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CD Burning (recording to) Questions

Q: I want to record an audio CD using the WMAs I created.

A: WMP7 or WM Player 9 Series will install the Roxio (Adaptec) CD-Burning Plug-in (provided your system doesn't have incompatibility issues with it). You can record to CD using WMP's File:Copy To CD option. If you want more full-fledged copying, go buy EZCD Creator Deluxe, which records from WMA, supports yer choice of DAO/TAO (gapless burning), does CD Label creation, and all the other fancy stuff. I personally found that EZCD Creator Deluxe is much more reliable than the plug-in (and therefore worth the $$), but your mileage may vary.

Also note that as of Nero 5.5, Nero also supports burning (non-copy protected) WMA files to disc via the WMA plug-in. And they have published a Fast CD-Burning Plug-In which integrates with WMP so you can burn CDs.
You will not be able to use audio plug-ins to affect how a CD is burned, meaning that you can not use the crossfading plug-in to burn a crossfaded CD. The CD will be normalized/leveled by default (if the files contain normalization/leveling information), but you can turn that off via TweakMP.

Per Kathy: In Media Player on Windows XP, you can also use WMP's "Copy to CD or Device" tab to burn CDs. If you're having problems with this and have up-to-date firmware for your burner (check your CD burner vendor's web site for that), there is an update available at Windows Update which may be of help. Furthermore, this is the actual Error Code Number to Error Description mapping table, which is also referenced with a little more data here - but note that MSDN's reference does not have the error code number.

Make sure you check out the actual Microsoft article on CD creation problems.

Finally, Kathy's Steps Towards Happy Burning are (that helps fix stuff like 0x8004020E (invalid alignment), 0x80040227 (filter in wrong state) and whatnot):

1. Roxio's Drag to Disk or Sonic's "DLA" will interfere with burning - you may need to turn that off if you're using it - right-click on the drive and choose "Disable drag to disk for this drive"
2. Run "regsvr32 wmp.dll" (only on XP, do not do this on Vista). Once that completes, restart the player and check to see if burning is now functional. This can fix the "Interface not registered" error.
3. Check for your drive on http://www.microsoft.com/hcl. If it's not listed as a compatible burner for Windows XP, it may not work correctly. You may want to make sure (if this is Windows XP) that the drive is enabled for burning. Per the Windows XP Release Notes: "To verify that your CD recorder drive is recognized, open My Computer, and in the Devices with Removable Storage area, right-click the drive, and then click Properties. If your CD recorder is recognized, you will see a Recording tab. If you are having problems copying to CDs and your CD recorder is recognized in My Computer, verify that the Enable CD recording on this drive check box is selected in the Properties dialog box for that drive." If there is no Recording tab, it's possible that the drive is not recognized by XP as a burner.
4. Make sure you have all burner-related updates from Windows Update. There's another burning update here - I'm not sure if that's on Windows Update.
5. Set your burn speed lower on your drive. You can do this by right-clicking on the drive in Explorer, clicking Properties and lowering the speed on the Recording tab.
6. Try different media. Sometimes, the quality of media is just not good.
7. Try to burn some different songs - sometimes data gets corrupted.
8. The "IMAPI burn service" must be enabled [Under the system's Administrative Tools:Computer Management:Services and Applications:Services].
9. Try uninstalling and reinstalling the driver for the CD burner.
10. Make sure you're using CD-Rs, not CD-RWs (CD-RWs don't work on most consumer players).

Also, you'll note that for all folders set as folder type "Music" (via folder Properties on the Customize tab) that have actual music in them (WMA/MP3/WAV) will have a "Burn Audio CD" folder task available.

Sometimes, while burning data CDs within Windows Explorer will work, burning Audio CDs in Windows Media Player will fail. Only one track may be burned before it stops and Windows Media Player says “will not fit” on the remaining tracks. Windows Media Player is simply reporting that the rest of the tracks will not fit on the completed CD because it has already been closed after burning one track. Because audio CDs need to be compatible with a wide range of consumer CD players, there is a greater likelihood that audio burns will fail due to buffer underruns. Closing some running programs and lowering drive speed may help. More about buffer under runs and what to do about them can be read here: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq04.html#S4-1.

In some cases, WMP may be stuck "inspecting" when you're trying to burn a CD. This either indicate that a file in the burn list can't be found (the location can't be resolved) OR that WMP is busy trying to provide Volume Leveling information. In the first case, you should attempt to verify that the files in the burn list exist by playing them. In the second case, you can either wait or uncheck "Apply volume leveling" under WMP's Tools:Options:Burn menu.

Finally- there's an article on how to burn CDs on Windows XP here and another one here ("Windows XP CD Burning Secrets").

If none of that works and you really really want to burn CDs from within WMP instead of using a different application, you may want to try the Nero Fast CD-Burning Plug-in for Windows Media Player 9 Series instead.

If that STILL doesn't work, you would have to use 3rd party burning software such as Nero or Roxio in order to burn your CDs.

Q: What if I want to burn a data CD?

A: Using WMP9 or WMP10 on Windows XP, go to the "Copy to CD or Device" menu tab. With your blank CD-RW in the burning driver, select "Data CD" from the drop-down tab on the right.

Or you can use the Windows XP shell interface for to burn a data CD. Or perhaps use Nero or Adaptec or another utility that will burn data CDs.
MP8 for Windows XP doesn't support burning data CDs.

One thing to note is that the Windows XP shell doesn't Finalize burned data CDs until the disc is absolutely full, so if your data CD player doesn't accept non-finalized CDs (as my Pioneer DEH-P940MP car CD player won't [and reportedly the Blaupunkt deck won't either]), you will most likely really want to use a 3rd party CD burning applications to burn the CD, and make sure you finalize the CD if your player won't accept it otherwise. Note that data CD players that don't accept non-finalized CDs are on their way out, so newer / more advanced players should accept non-finalized CDs just fine (as the Aiwa deck does). Some CD playback devices will also not accept CD-RWs, so you may need to burn with CD-Rs instead. And some REALLLLY old CD players simply won't accept anything other than commercially pressed CDs. :\

Q: How can I print playlists, CD labels, or the contents of my Media Library?

A: Ries wrote a Media Library Exporter and Importer that imports the Media Library into Access *and back*. :) Also, his Playlist Copier lets you copy the playlist to the clipboard, which is mighty useful for printing playlists. :)
I personally use the CD Label Creator included with the Windows XP Plus! pack. It's pretty simple (definitely not the powerful Photoshop-esque tool some people use), only prints out playlists, but is quick and does a nice job for the minimal time you'll invest in building the label.

If you're just looking to export your library, Media Info Exporter (by MS) exports the library to Excel, Word, HTML or XML directly.

If on the other hand you want a more full-fledged ability to print out the files you have on your system, Galley recommends Media Jukebox.
Gary recommends eMusic Tag Editor.
Shurosoft's SongWriter plug-in lets you update your web site with your current music selection. :)

Q: I have accidently deleted my AutoPlaylist WPL files. Whoops! How do I restore them?

A: They should be on your system in a subdirectory under the- "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Music\Sample Playlists" directory (AKA "c:\documents and settings\all users\shared documents\shared music\sample playlists"). Alternatively, you could search your system for "Fresh tracks -- yet to be played.wpl"... where that is, the other WPLs will be.

If that doesn't make you happy, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Mediaplayer\Setup and delete the registry value "PlaylistsVersion" and then run the Windows Media Player and use its Help:Check for Update menu option to get the WPLs put back on your system.

Q: I have Adaptec EZCD Creator 3.5 installed on Windows 2000 and...

A: According to Adaptec, this is very bad. Uninstall Adaptec 3.5. If you really want to keep Adaptec 3.5 on W2K, o