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Windows Media Player Set To Lose a Feature on Windows 7 (onmsft.com)

With Windows 7 reaching its end of life in less than a year, developers are likely to begin retiring features for the operating system. Kicking off the process of retiring features is Microsoft, which is retiring a feature in Windows Media Player, according to updated support documentation on its website. From a report: New metadata for music, TV shows and movies, will not be added to Windows Media Player. This means that additional information such as cover art, directors, actors, and more, will not display on Windows Media Player. This change also affects Windows Media Center on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1.

17 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Who even uses this by kalpol · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's one of the first thing I reset file associations for. So I don't care about their metadata.

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    1. Re:Who even uses this by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not about using it, it's about getting people used to the concept of "retiring features" such that they accept it instead of talking about how Microsoft is conspiring to cripple the OS like they did with XP and the associated malicious updates that broke critical features at the end. They start with stupid things nobody uses so that when they get to the real stuff they can go "retiring features has been going on publicly for awhile and nobody cared." Call it what it is: "crippling things you don't own which customers paid for in order to force them to pay you again."

  2. Oh my... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I bet those who use that feature will be miffed. Both of them.

  3. Everybody On Windows Uses MPC-HC Anyways by dryriver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, who watches media with Windows Media Player when free players like MPC offer a much superior experience? MPC can even run custom HLSL pixel shaders on GPU, allowing videos to be enhanced in realtime on GPU (e.g. realtime sharpening, upconversion). You can even write your own .hlsl GPU pixel shader, hit CTRL+S, and MPC applies the custom pixel shader to video immediately. Windows Media Player is not capable of any such feats.

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    1. Re:Everybody On Windows Uses MPC-HC Anyways by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Informative

      MPC? They dropped it too..

      From the MPC-HC web site...

      "
      v1.7.13 is released and farewell
        July 16, 2017 XhmikosR
      v1.7.13, the latest, and probably the last release of our project

      For quite a few months now, or even years, the number of active developers has been decreasing and has inevitably reached zero. This, unfortunately, means that the project is officially dead and this release would be the last one.

      Unless some people step up that is.

      So, if someone’s willing to really contribute and has C/C++ experience, let me know on IRC or via e-mail.

      Otherwise, all things come to an end and life goes on. It’s been a nice journey and I’m personally pretty overwhelmed having to write this post.

      Thanks to everyone who has contributed in any way all these years; Remember, MPC-HC is an 11-year old project.

      Don’t forget, that our official builds, both the stable and the beta builds, are digitally signed. Be aware of scams and only get the files from our site!

      Also, to report bugs, suggestions and generally provide feedback, use our Trac; reporting anything on social media or in any other place is just pointless, as the developers only follow Trac.

      You can download the new version here. For the complete changes see the changelog.
      "

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    2. Re:Everybody On Windows Uses MPC-HC Anyways by CrashNBrn · · Score: 2

      MPC Black Edition is still active. I don't recall when MPC-BE was originally forked, but had to be at least 5 or 6 years ago.

  4. Re:Turn off updates by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Informative

    The issue isn't an update that removed features. The issue is Microsoft turning off a cloud server that provides this data to Windows 7/8/8.1 versions of WiMP. You'd need to patch WiMP to get the data from somewhere else if you need it.

  5. Hey look! by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's probably the last time Microsoft will officially recognize Windows Media Center as existing.

    But that's ok, because Cable companies will continue to encrypt every channel they legally can while renting you a CableCard, and the only software that you can get to decrypt it? Windows Media Center.

    Legal lock-in for DVR rentals. And the cable companies wonder why we hate them.

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    1. Re:Hey look! by gatorMagic · · Score: 2

      I still run a Windows 7 box since I have WMC on it. WMC can record an OTA or cable channel (those that aren't restricted) with my CableCard and then I (or most likely my kids) can watch it anywhere, cell service or not. A partial end run around the cable's DVR monopoly. I'm going to miss it; my Tivo is good but it can't do that. :-(

  6. Re:Not sure why this is being retired by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    WMP isn't front and center of Win10 like previous versions Windows but it's still there. You have to set it to be the default player. There are older features that I think that you have to hack like DVD playback.

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  7. Re:Turn off updates by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 2

    More than likely that they want to kill WMP
    Good riddance but what they replace it with will prolly be shitter than WMP.
    Prolly worse than RealPlayer. Who remembers that mess.

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    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
  8. Re:Turn off updates by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One less server tracking your viewing habits?

    Good riddance!

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    No sig today...
  9. Re:Turn off updates by spire3661 · · Score: 2

    Nobody asked you. Not all PCs are actual personal computers. Some of them are essentially cogs in a larger apparatus. If a machine has a small proscribed role , there is no need to apply patches unless you find an actual hole that affects your use-case.

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    Good-bye
  10. Douches by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 2

    This is like a car manufacturer saying "since your car is 10 years old we're going to retire the taillights."

  11. Missing the point by DarkOx · · Score: 2

    Most of the comments here are really missing the point. The moral of the story is If it needs external services to function YOU DON'T OWN IT. You can never OWN it.

    Even if its OSS you might not be able to own it. At least there you'd have shot anyway at being able to implement some kind of patch to get whatever data it needs from some other source, or be able to obtain enough information to implement your own replacement service and or change where it points replace whatever certificate it requires etc.

    Still we need some consume protections that require disclosing of external service dependencies and/or some rules requiring companies to support/maintain the services their products depend on for some minimum period of time as long as they are going concern.

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  12. Re:Turn off updates by darkain · · Score: 2

    Automatic updates has absolutely nothing to do with this. The service in question is just that, a service, not a piece of software. Think of it as Microsoft's version of the CDDB database. They're shutting down servers. Any metadata content for your CDs that is already downloaded locally will continue to function just fine locally. Only "new" content, such as attempting to load a new CD into Windows Media Player will fail to obtain the metadata because the metadata database service online is being shut down. These articles are just FUD tactics per usual about the end of days!

  13. Re:Turn off updates by scottrocket · · Score: 2
    Yes, from the article:

    "This change doesn’t affect any major media player functionality such as playback, navigating collections, media streaming, and so forth. Only secondary features that require downloading of new metadata are potentially affected. Windows 10 is not affected. This change is effective immediately."