Windows Media Player

Are you sure the version listed as 5.1 is really 5.1? How can you tell? I downloaded that version after finding 6.4 (6.4.07.1112 I assume, that is the version on my Windows 98 computer and I believe was the newest 6.x version available on Microsoft's web site) did not work here on WinXP. It said something like 'We will make a Windows 2000 version soon.' Your version 5.1 says 5.1 in the About Box, but then I noticed so do Calculator and Paint and Notepad; it's apparently the version number of Windows XP, and the Windows Media Player is just showing the generic about box with the name 'Windows Media Player' on it.

By the way, Windows XP secretly comes with a new WMP 6.4, 6.4.09.1124, which does work here and has 'Check For Player Upgrade' disabled. I suppose it is for those who, like me, dislike 8.00.00.4477 (not 7.1, which apparently isn't really the newest version) supplied with Windows XP. You can get to it by typing 'mplayer2' in Run from the Start Menu. I discovered this after using the alleged version 5.1 for a while. In addition, 6.4.09.1124 shows ID3 tags of MP3 files it is playing.

While WMP 6.4 is mostly nice, I still don't like its lack of playlist support (it works with premade playlists, but you can't make your own or edit them in any way or even see which song is playing), and there will never be support for more file formats. Therefore, I am writing my own audio player program and have already addressed the former issue. But that is not related to the topic at hand, so I will not elaborate!

(By the way, before anyone asks, the reason I don't like Winamp is that it wastes memory with all its ridiculous options no one will ever use and by being 'too cool' to use the standard Windows buttons, menus, et cetera.)

[OldVersion.com Admin]

We usually tell by going to About->Information although that might not be your question. We realize that Windows XP/2000 comes built in with Windows Media Player 6.4 which can be run by typing mplayer2 in the start menu. Personally, 6.4 is all I use as I find all previous versions of Windows Media Player to be bloated. I don't listen to music using it, so I don't really need a playlist. It's the matter of watching a couple of movies here and there so it's quite sufficient.

Originally posted by graue@Oct 19 2002, 09:27 PM
(By the way, before anyone asks, the reason I don't like Winamp is that it wastes memory with all its ridiculous options no one will ever use and by being 'too cool' to use the standard Windows buttons, menus, et cetera.)

are you serious? winamp 2.77 only take like 1.4 megs of memory while playing a song. WMP 6.4 takes 3megs just sitting there doing nothing. WMP 8 takes almost 4megs.