Windows Media Player 7 is out

[Scorpion]

Wow, sounds like this new version really blows goats. Why is Microsoft crapping up their Media Player?!

Someone mentioned about the no CDDB support. I found that out by using Win2k CD Player. Apparently, they have their own site that supposedly does the same thing. But their database isn't anywhere near what CDDB is. I popped in a pretty common CD and it couldn't find it. Very Shoddy.

Looks like I'll be avoiding this. VERY VERY disappointing...

 

[steelthorn]

I take back what I said earlier. I hate 7.0! It totally sucks. I can't get it to play anything, it keeps saying there is no connection.

 

[Shudder]

I thank everyone who said that 6.4 is still in WinME. I renamed all the Mplayer2.exe's to WMPLAY.exe (something similar) and everything runs great.

For those who don't think Windows MP is bloated, the 6.4 exe is 12k whereas the 7 exe is 380k. That equals exactly 368k of crap we didn't need before.

 

[Huma]

Add me to the is sucks list. We've been talking about it at ars forum.

Cpu and mem usage is way up, the interface is crap, you can't resize mpgs (normal and full screen only), and audio quality sucks even compared to winamp.

I uninstalled it and went back to 6.4.

6.4 is still there even after the upgrade, so just redirect your files to open with it and uninstall 7.

pure garbage.

 

[steelthorn]

How do you unistall 7.0 and redirect your files to 6.4? I can't figure it out

 

[Eli]

Well, I'm glad I didn't download it. Sounds like a waste of time.

 

[Auric]

You don't have to rename anything to use MP6 (mplayer2.exe) and I personally am not going to uninstall MP7 (yet, anyway). I would not be surprised if it meant having to reinstall MP6. Anyhoo just go into MP6 options and tick all the formats you want it to play. E-Z.

Edit: I'm talking from the WinME perspective here. If you have added MP7 to Win98 you may as well uninstall it and reinstall MP6 if necessary.

 

[Shudder]

You CAN resize the movie.. well, 50, 100, and 200% is there along with fullscreen, but you have to have it in normal (not compact) mode. The media box is a certain size and if the 100 and 200% size is bigger than that, it won't get bigger.. it's a pain and anyway, screw it.. just get rid of it or rename the files.

And you don't really need to redirect. You can either open up 6.4 and tell it to be the default (which I don't trust) or you can do a search for all .exe's if you don't know the exact names. I recommend Powerdesk www.ontrack.com to do all file browsing. Copy the new media player, the one with the huge footprint compared to 6.4, and copy mplayer2.exe and rename it. I like having the idea that Windows has no clue where Media Player 7 is But just in case they figure out how dumb it is and patch it, I want to have it around.

You have to wonder.. How many people do you know that say "Holy crap! This is the media experience I have been waiting for!" So far, everyone hates it. Nice try MS, we're not all morons.

 

[dszd0g]

Digobick, I can't find any info about that unique identifier anywhere. Where is it in the Tools->Options or anywhere else? Where did you see that?

 

[AMB]

dszd0g: 'Allow Internet Sites to uniquely indetify your player' It is under the player tab

 

[dszd0g]

I guess I was being blind.

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Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your Windows Media Player

Specifies whether you want Windows Media Player to enable Internet sites to uniquely identify your Windows Media Player using an unique identifier created by Windows Media Player. The identifier is used to uniquely identify your connection to a server and does not contain any personally identifiable information about you.

When you receive streaming media over the Internet, Windows Media Player sends a unique identifier to the server that is delivering the stream. The server uses this unique identifier to monitor your connection. By monitoring your connection, the server can make adjustments to increase the playback quality and to alert you about events that occur when receiving streams over the Internet. The unique identifier only serves to aid the server in identifying your computer and differentiating it from other computers that may be accessing streaming media.

Clear the Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your player check box if you do not want a server to uniquely identify your computer when you are receiving streaming media.

For more information see the privacy statement on the WindowsMedia.com Web site.

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It kind of sounds like a cookie. But they seem to be intentionally very vague. They state that the cookie itself does not contain any personal information. Well, duh! How is it used?

Well, let's read this privacy policy they referred us to.

If you read their privacy policy (It directs you to the MSN.COM Privacy Statement) Principle 2 states that they will pass your information to third parties. Principle 3 states that when they do so they will include one of those clauses down at the bottom "to remove yourself from this list..." This is a TRUSTe certified privacy policy. Guess who sponsors TRUSTe, you guessed it, M$.

So Principle 2 and 3 involve spamming us.

Thanks for letting me know about that.

 

[dszd0g]

Also Principle 5 is kind of ammusing if you read into it. It states that they will disclose personal information about you if required to do so by law.

How could they do this if they weren't gathering the personal information in the first place?