Tried Windows Media Player 11 Beta?

[orenji_jaro 0]

yes and it screwed up my windowx XP

[seec77 0]

First of all, for all you SP2 objectors: https://slashdot.org/story/06/10/10/0032245/windows-xp-sp1-support-ends-tuesday
I really don't know what there is to object to...
And besides, you can't blame Microsoft for wanting to rely on their updates for their newer softwares. That's like asking all mIRC scripters to have their scripts work on mIRC 5.13. What's the point? And I think your (whoever it was that said his machine rejected SP2) computer is having problems with Windows in general, because I don't Microsoft would go around making updates that ruin support for some types of computers. Yeah, you can blame Microsoft for a lot of things, but asking for SP2 is just general industry behavior.

And yeah, I agree with Jeigh. The person that started this thread was asking about WMP11, not the alternatives. And of course there are going to be a million alternatives for every piece of software on earth, but you must admit that for the people who enjoy using WMP, it does its job in a satisfactory manner. I am still with WMP10, even though I don't listen to my music collection with it, but it's great for opening audio files that I don't necessarily want to add to my iTunes library...

Now I'm going to check out VLC.

[toby 0]

Wmp looks better, the album info is really nice to look at. It's worth getting, not worth using. It freezes any time I try to load more than one song in. Wimanp is just as bad, I use RealPlayer.

[lonebyrd 0]

My girlfriend just downloaded Windows Media Player 11 a few days ago. There has been no problem so far it hasn't had any problems that I can tell. I still really don't like the way things are sorted. I have no need to see all the album art when I am looking for the songs I want. To me it is a waste of space. And some of the album art isn't even correct. But still it is pretty easy to navigate around. But overall I would have stuck with Windows Media Player 9. I liked the simplicty of it without all the added crap.

[turbopowerdmaxsteel 0]

Well, it has been out of beta for a while now. I've been sticking with WMP since v 7 (the one bundled with Windows ME). That was the time, when they really revamped the player. The way it sits on top of the taskbar (WMP taskbar toolbar) comes in real handy, as the entire player doesn't need to be focused for the basic jobs. It has improved album based management, instant search, album info finder and the vista black look, enough to make it my favorite media player. Personally, I don't have any problem with downloading the codecs for out of the block media formats.It does crash once in a while. But one could attribute that to the growing complexity in the software. And let me tell you, Winamp isn't perfect either. I remember, v 3 not starting at all, on many occasions. Re-installing was the only option back then. The last Winamp I tried was v 5 which was a great improvement to the already impressive Winamp.

[toby 0]

I've had 11 right from the start of the beta, and it just looks nicer, finds album covers (from the hidden pictures in the folders) and etc. Still, RealPlayer ftw, I use VLC for videos, except some only run in WMP (virii probably).

[Chesso 0]

I don't normally use Windows Media Player as my default player either, I use Media Player Classic and Video Lan Client, however when these 2 fail (and it does happen), Windows Media Player almost always pulls through without a hitch.

[dhanesh1405241511 0]

I have to agree with chesso. I guess 95% of the time i use VLC, cause i normally am a brightness & contrast adjusting freek as well as i cant tend to get a good effect of the audio on WMP. Guess the most needed video playback tools for anyone would be: VLC, WMP or WMP Classic (and a codec pack ) Regards Dhanesh.

[Grafitti 0]

I use Media Player for most of my installations, simply because I can't afford to spend half an hour answering questions form each person as to how winamp works, where the play button is, how come i can't make a playlist in VLC, etc. So for them, that's the best option. For myself, I used to use VLC as my default video player and winamp as my audio player, but I found that the KMPlayer acts exactly like winamp, looks the same with the proper skin (if you're familiar with Winamp) plays more than VLC, and supports playlists, plus a bunch of filters and tweaking. Also i had trouble sometimes with VLC playing wmv files, it would skip and pixelate quite badly. KMP has no such problems, and is freeware.

[wutske 0]

Since Media Player 9 I started to like it, I even called it the sole thing Microsoft made well. I realy don't want to use Winamp anymore, it's like it's been made out of several pieces (wich is good for something like The GIMP, but not for a media player). iTunes isn't one of my favourites either, mostly because it comes with Quicktime (I prefer Quick Alternative, it's much faster). The VLC player is to basic and ugly in my opionion.Yet I must say I hate WMP11 on Vista, music tend to hang and skipping a song takes up to 10 seconds ... just because it wants to do some DRM check ... even worse, it sucks up more processor time than usual ...That makes me the man in the middle, I'm stuck, my favourite sucks and I don't have a good alternative

[blackandwhiteentertainment 0]

I love window's media player 11 especially if you have windows vista it's nice to have.also i have MSN messenger and you can use the "What I'm Listening To" feature if you have window's media player.Although winamp is pretty cool i already have window's media player and it works really good. if you have a slower computer you might want winamp though. Also i have a Verizon Samsung mp3 phone and you have to use Window's Media Player to put the songs on to it. so think about that too.i have a eMachines computer with a 120gb hard drive and 1024mb RAM memory. it also has a kickass ATI Radeon Express 200 graphics card. although i do need a better monitor because i got a 17" CRT and i would like to take my computer places because i record a lot and if a band don't wanna relocate or i can't record drums because of the neighbors i could take it were ever i wanted. i'd really like a 19 - 21" Flat Panel LCD. YEAH!!!Well any ways Microsoft's Windows Media Player does rock and you only need something else if you are going to need to convert your audio or video files. I use Jet Audio (FREE) for my audio converting and Ultra Video To Flash Converter for my video files (Also FREE!!!) and they work great.

[Moon Child 0]

I'm not so sure about WMP. I've always had mixed feelings with it. The cons being it's always been a slow responder to 'quick clicks' when it came to just spontaneously choosing music to play. The pros, well, I would have to say the eye candy. Other than that, I can't see anything else that has improved its loading time. I'd really rather stick to WinAmp, it's way more efficient running than the overly large WMP.

[Sten 0]

I am probably not going to get Windows Media Player 11 until it is a full version. Beta things aren't all that brilliant in my opinion so I don't use them much.I also don't like the look of media player 11.I'll stick with 10 for now until its a full version.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

Since Media Player 9 I started to like it, I even called it the sole thing Microsoft made well. I realy don't want to use Winamp anymore, it's like it's been made out of several pieces (wich is good for something like The GIMP, but not for a media player). iTunes isn't one of my favourites either, mostly because it comes with Quicktime (I prefer Quick Alternative, it's much faster). The VLC player is to basic and ugly in my opionion.Yet I must say I hate WMP11 on Vista, music tend to hang and skipping a song takes up to 10 seconds ... just because it wants to do some DRM check ... even worse, it sucks up more processor time than usual ...
That makes me the man in the middle, I'm stuck, my favourite sucks and I don't have a good alternative

My WMP11 never skips nor does it ever hang, maybe Vista is sucking up too much of ur machine's resources? I actually like WMP11 over any WMPs in the past.

xboxrulz

[Sten 0]

Since Media Player 9 I started to like it, I even called it the sole thing Microsoft made well. I realy don't want to use Winamp anymore, it's like it's been made out of several pieces (wich is good for something like The GIMP, but not for a media player). iTunes isn't one of my favourites either, mostly because it comes with Quicktime (I prefer Quick Alternative, it's much faster). The VLC player is to basic and ugly in my opionion.Yet I must say I hate WMP11 on Vista, music tend to hang and skipping a song takes up to 10 seconds ... just because it wants to do some DRM check ... even worse, it sucks up more processor time than usual ...
That makes me the man in the middle, I'm stuck, my favourite sucks and I don't have a good alternative

Windows media player 9 is probably one of the worst of media player.
I really hated it. As soon as 10 came out I got that and it was good.