Windows Media Player 11 is one of the new applications included in Windows Vista. The interface is very simple and visually effective compared to version 10, the media library is organized in a better way, the performance has improved and new features were added. Overall it is the best version of Windows Media Player released by Microsoft.
In this tutorial we will show you how to customize your installation of Windows Media Player 11 and the basics about the program navigation.
Customizing the installation
When you run Windows Media Player 11 (WMP 11) for the first time, you will have to customize its installation.
You can use the Express Settings or you can create Custom Settings. We always recommend you to use the second option.
In the Privacy Options window you can configure very important settings. If you tick the “Display media information from the internet” checkbox, Windows Media Player will search and display information about the songs you are listening to. Checking the “Update music files by retrieving media information from the Internet” option is very useful as it allows WMP 11 to download information about the songs you are listening to and complete the missing information.
The third option allows WMP 11 to acquire the usage rights associated with the protected files found in your music library. Another important configuration option is the History. If you want to have the URL history of your played files saved in the player, just check the appropriate box and press Next.
Now you can select if you want to have any shortcuts on your desktop or in the quick launch bar.
At this step you can configure WMP 11 as your default music and video player or you can choose the file types that WMP 11 will play. If you prefer the second option you will have to go through the complete list of registered file types and choose the ones you want WMP 11 to play.
The basics about program navigation
As you can see in the screenshot below, WMP 11 has a tab based interface. You have four tabs (for the each of the main functions) and, on the left side, two buttons for navigating Back and Forward.
If you click on Now Playing you will have access to the current Playlist. Here you can arrange the order in which the files are played, you can rate them or remove them from the playlist. If you click again on Now Playing you will have access to a number of configuration options such as audio enhancements, video settings, plug-ins or visualizations.
In the Library tab you can navigate through your media library. You can view your media files using several predefined views such as: artist, album, rating, folder, etc. You can also organize your library, manage your playlists or use the search feature to find the files you want to play.
The Rip gives users access to several options for ripping music from their audio CD’s.
The Burn tab provides several options for burning your music on audio CD’s. You can find more information in our guide about burning audio CD’s in Windows Media Player 11.
As you can imagine, the Sync allows users to synchronize video, music and pictures to a wide variety of portable devices, including portable media players, storage cards, and Portable Media Centers. Unfortunately we do not have a tutorial on this topic. We will try to create one in the upcoming weeks.
Related articles:
How to burn an audio CD in Windows Vista
How to rip music from an audio CD in Windows Vista
How to add album art and update album information
Synchronize Mobile Devices With Your PC Using Sync Center
Recommended articles:
Windows Media Player 11 – Simplicity in Design
Window media player -11 is not installing in window vista
Respected sir,
In my computer is window vista operation system. So many time i try to install window media player -11 ( file size 24.5 MB) but, it is not installing . I donot know why it is not installing?
pls. send me guidelines.
Regards
S.kumar
Windows Media Player 11 is
Windows Media Player 11 is installed by default in Windows Vista. Unless you have the “Windows Vista N” editions which are sold in Europe, it should be there.
You can find the shortcut directly in the Start Menu or you can use Instant Search to find it.
how do i uninstall windows
how do i uninstall windows media player 11? i don’t like it and i want to get rid of it.
Media player error
I have Windows Vista and having a very big problem with my windows media 11 .I try to open up the media player but it always says it needs to be reinstalled, but when i try to reinstall it, it alway says the most recent version is installed and then it closes, How do i fix this problem? Its driving me nuts.
did you fix windows media player?
I have the same problem but didn’t see any response to your question. If you figured it out I’d be gratefull for some help. It doesn’t make much sense.
Thanks
how do I get cd covers for
how do I get cd covers for music in media player 11 then transfer it to my music
RE: how do I get cd covers for music…
Assuming you’ve added MP3’s to your library… Open WMP. Goto the Library. Just to the left of the search box, there is a button with a drop down menu. From that menu select “Icon”. So your MP3’s are displayed as CD cases.
I use Google image search to locate albulm art. Amazon is another good source. Once you locate a image for the album art (in internet Explorer) right click the image and select Copy.
Go back to WMP and right click the blank CD icon and select “Paste Album Art”. This will embed the image into the MP3 file.
Notes: If you use the get information/art from the internet from WMP the album art is stored in a DB file. So if you reload the OS you lose your album art. My method of pasting it embeds it into the file so in the event of an OS reload you wont lose the images.
Optimal image sizes are: 200×200 but I have used images as large as 500×500. Make sure the image is as square as possible (ie 100×100, 200×200, 300×300 etc).
Paste Album Art Missing
Hi, This is driving me mad, i’ve looked at loads of sites and got the same instruction and seen screen shots but on my media player 11 it has text on the cdbox icon saying “paste art here” but when i right click there is not “paste album art” option, i definitely have it in my clipboard, and all the options i’ve seen in screenshots are there like “Find Album Info”, “Update Album Info” just not paste..
Pasting Album Art
I agree that this is maddening! I used Microsoft Office Picture Manager to compress the size of my scanned album art jpg from 1.2Mb down to a 31k “web page” size and then copied it to the clipboard from within that program. No “Paste Album Art” option appeared in Windows Media Player 11 when I then tried to paste it into the album.
However, if I then saved the jpg from Office Picture Manager to disc, opened it with “Windows Photo Gallery”, copied it to the clip board and right clicked the album in Windows Media Centre, the “Paste Album Art” option appeared.
If you can’t paste album art, do it from song tag editor
You can also right click on one of the songs, go to advanced tag editor, pictures tab and add picture as type cover. this might seem a longer way of doing it but for some reason an option to paste album art doesn’t show up for me.
Thanks that worked a treat!!
Thanks that worked a treat!! why i didnt think of that i dont know i have no hair left scince December… Cheers
THANKS!!
Your suggestion worked. I claim to be proficient in WMP. I don’t know how I missed that!
How to add window media as plugin to mozilla
On my PC with Vista, Media Player11 is installed. But when I run Mozilla, it says that I need plugin to be installed. When I click to download, it appears as media player 11. I did download and try to re install it to have plug in. It refuses to install because the version I got in my PC is more recent than the one I downloaded.
What should I do? I try to uninstall media plyar but did not find it in the Control Panel / Programs
Thanks for your assistance
Le Tat
Cannot get past the first installation page, ‘NEXT’ is missing
Everytime I use the Media Player I get this window that won’t go away. It is missing the ‘NEXT’ button. Welcome to Windows Media Player for Vista, choose express or custom. It won’t go away and I can’t choose anything. The picture above shows ‘When you run Windows Media Player 11 (WMP 11) for the first time, you will have to customize its installation’. The problem is that I do not have that little NEXT buttom in the bottom right corner. I have everything EXCEPT that, so I can not move forward and accept it.
How can I get past it or reinstall it?
Windows Media Player & internet mp3’s
In previous versions of Windows Media Player(i.e. XP platform), when a hyperlinked mp3 was clicked on it would open to WMP and stream it right away while downloading it… now with Vista and WMP 11 it only gives you a save option even though WMP is the default program for opening the mp3. How can I get it to launch the mp3 right away when the mp3 hyperlink on a webpage is clicked?
Deleteing a library
How do I delete and entire library in WMP11 for Vista so I cn re-build it and start again?
Go to…
Go to Library -> Additional Views -> Folder. There you will see the major folders that are included in your library. Right click on the ones you want to delete and click on Delete.
Afterwards add the folders you want into your Library again.
I cant seem to rip MP3’s
I cant seem to rip MP3’s from a CD onto my media player library, does anybody know how I can get these MP3’s on my library from a CD?
Ripping audio to MP3
I am running Vista Ultimate and cannot rip my audio CD’s into MP3 or WMA formats under WMP 11.
I have tried altering the bitrate in MP3 and using the various WMA options but the I always get errors. Sometimes the track will actually rip up to 70% and then stop and other times it does not seem to do much at all.
This is the same with various audio CD’s.
I have Roxio EMC9 but that similar ripping application stops and starts momentarily under Vista. It is OK on my other PC running XP.
Any assistance with this WMP11 ripping application is appreciated.
Cheers
Error Message
I am running Windows Media Player through Windows Vista and after one week of it running perfectly it began to place a red ‘x’ beside every song and an error message pops up stating that it cannot play the file because it is already in use, i dont have access to the computer in which the file is stored, or the proxy setup is incorrect. I have tried everything that i can possibly think of. What am I suppose to do?
Album art not downloading/showing
I have Vista with the new media player 11 – when I rip a CD the album name and songs are updated when I click find album information – the album art is also showing – but once I remove the cd – the album art goes missing, it is not saved or downloaded in the music folder / library. Driving me crazy because I cannot find any useful info on how to resolve this. Help! Bit of a novice.
Getting Rid of Windows media player 11 on vista
How can I get uninstall windows media player 11 on my new computer which is windows vista campatible.
I think we should have a right to decide which media player we want on our computer that we are paying for. I think the company should remember this. I know alot of ppeople that are sick of vista and windows media player 11 being installed and switching over to MACS.
Windows Media Player 11
How do I get the seek bar to work. I can not jump to different sections of the video I’m playing.
CANT PLAY ALL SORTS OF VIDEOS
HI,, I USE WINDOWS VISTA HOME BASIC… I USE MEDIA PLAYER 11… BUT MY PROBLEM IS I CANT PLAY ALL SORTS OF VIDEO FILES IN THIS… IT COMPLAINS SOMETHING ABOUT “CODECS”,, PLZ HELP ME TO FIX THIS PROBLEM..
Search for codecs
Search on google for a codec pack, download it and install it.
I recommend K-lite Codec Pack Standard:
http://www.free-codecs.com/K_Lite_Codec_Pack_download.htm
art
I have ripped my CD’s to WMP and then retrieved the information / title / art from the internet through right clicking and selecting ‘find album info’. This is great and has renamed and filed all my songs however the art is causing me some issues. The art appears blank at the moment in ‘icon’ view, but when you select / play the album the art appears in the bottom left hand screen but still remains blank in the main page?! Help! Its very frustrating.
Thank you for creating this
Thank you for creating this page it helped me a lot and I have had Vista for over a year now!
changing WM11 default tab to Now Playing from Library
Can somebody help how to change the WM view to Now playing tab which is currently showing Library
when i open Media player.
i have forgot how i used to do it..
Thanks
regards,
santhosh
Buttons not working
Hi There
can someone please tell me how to fix this problem its driving me insane.
I cant get any of the buttons to work properly i cant switch between burn and sync screens when i click the play and fast forward it just does nothing.
Please help
thanks
playback audio media
whenever i play a song on windows media player, it plays normally until about 85-90% of the song’s completion, it sort of breaks up the audio, but then continues the rest of the song like normal. when i replay the song and click on the time bar to where the break would occur, there’s no break in the audio. This happens to every one of my audio files, and it’s extremely annoying. is there any way to get rid of this?
Mdeia player 11 in Vista bug
Sometimes on clicking on a file on the desktop, wmp 11 in Vista plays the file but does not open itself to the desktop. I can hear the sound track and have to pen wmp manualy. Sometimes a restart cures this problem, but it keeps happening too often.
Any ideas?
error when playing cd
I have been trying to fix or figure out my media player. I used to be able to play a cd on it with no problem. I moved and connected everything back up and now I can’t play a cd. It plays for about a minute and then errors show up. I can burn cd’s with data not music and other cd’s with programs I can use.
Really need and want to fix my computer media player. Also trying to figure out how to get everything else off my computer and get it back to the way it was when I bought it about two years ago.
Want to use my windows media player really bad. Please help!