Media Player 7

[Ovi]

Hi everyone
I recently got a copy of Windows Media Player 7 in a magazine’s CD. But I’ve heard that it’s quite slow and unstable. So should I install it or not? I read somewhere that it incorporates the Wow Thing plugin that’s available separately only for Winamp. How does it sound with this plugin activated?
Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.
Cheers
Ovi

[ayoub_ibrahim]

not installed it in my box because of poor user satisfaction in many forums & problems with using it with Adaptec burning software.

[Pace]

It's very nice - you can sort tracks by Album, Artist and genre - assuming you have used ID3 tags correctly (or WMA).

However, it does prevent Adaptec 3.5 and below (anything below 4 I think) from burning CDs. This bug initially only affected Win2k I believe but I've saw other users having problems with it in Win9x.

The Wow effects sound good but only if you've got good speakers. Although I've yet to notice a difference between the large/small speaker setting or indeed, the headphone setting!

Paul.

[Gurm]

Pace, what about the codec incompatibilities, the HUGE loading time, and the overall crash-happiness of MP7?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Wombat]

I upgraded, and I wish I hadn't. It's definitely slower than previous versions. As far as the Adaptec problems, I have DirectCD 4.02 (but I have yet to use it, just using Plextor tools for now).

Not to mention turning off all the user tracking options. Haven't noticed codec incompatibilities or crashing though.

[Greebe]

So far I'm happy with it. Not a single crash, no incompatabilities etc. Could it be an OS related issue?

[The PIT]

Hasn't crashed on me yet either.

[Jammrock]

1) WM7 is recommended for ONLY Win98SE, WinMe and Win2k. If you have Win95 or NT, don't even try.

2) Even though it will work in Win98, it's not that great. When used in WinMe or Win2k, it's okay. It works, it works stabily, it just loads up VERY slow.

3) The only CODEC I've heard that had troubles in WM7 is DivX =), but a simple re-install of that CODEC takes care of that problem.

4) There are some features that really blow chunks in WM7. The player is bulky, even in compact mode. In compact mode you don't have a 5th of the options as you do in full mode. Be sure to run through all the Preferences as there are a lot of Internet information senders that you need to turn off.

5) Playback on WM7 is good. So far I have not found a file that WM7 couldn't play, and play well (except Real Player and other proprietary file types). And so far *knock on wood* I haven't had any crashes, but I run on WinMe and Win2k.

Jammrock

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Athlon 650, Biostar board, 128 MB PC133 (Crucial), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, 10/100 NIC, lots of case fans, etc...

[Paddy]

I thought that WinME was just Win 98 + WM7 and Direct X 7 with a couple of extra drivers....

WM7 works fine for me in 98.

[agallag]

You can remove the adaptec burning plugin from WMP7 quite easily. go to add/remove programs, select WMP7, click change/remove, and you can selectively remove components, the adaptec plugin included.

Why would anyone want to create a cd from their media player anyway? I've never understood that.

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Andrew

I will not torment the emotionally frail

[DentyCracker]

It is too darn slow and puts gaps in between tracks on CDs where there are NO gaps.
It crashed in WIN2K yesterday but I was running my Duron at 850 (on a shitty HSF)so it may not have been the WMP7 at all. It has nice features (not that SRS though, I like my music pure on the Klipsch ProMedia v2.400). Haven't even installed the Adaptec plugin as I figure it will be track at once and I never burn audioCDs track at once (need no 2 sec. pause between tracks).
I really use it only to watch videos (avi, mpg, some mov). I use Sonique 1.63 for audio and cdplayer for CDs.

[Jorden]

I installed WMP7 from the WinME cd, and the only problem I had was a conflict with WinAmp, resulting in MSGSRV32.EXE crashing, blocking my complete PC. I tried to uninstall WMP7, but found that there's no option to do so... Not in Add/Remove Programs, not in the Windows Setup, no uninstall option in the WMP7 directory. So I ended up uninstalling WinAmp. No big loss there, because WinAmp lately played my music CDs in mono only

And besides normal mp3's, WMP7 can play alot of other formats as well, and even record it.

Jord.

[Ovi]

Hi everyone
Thanks for your responses Since I don't have a CD-Writer,and since most of MP7's problems seem to be with CD writer software,I think I'll install MP7.
Cheers
Ovi

P.S.This forum absolutely rocks

[Pace]

Gurm: I only said it was nice in that it supports the cool media library feature. However, I didn't know of any codec incompatibilities so could you explain further. I'm quite interested in this as I'm builing a home system for a friend and was looking to make it as easy to use as possible as well as cool stuff. WMP7 would be excellent for them but I can't afford incompatibility!

As for the slow loading and instability I've never had any problems with my Win2k box or WinMe (although I've since deleted Me since I never used it).

One other little criticism which has happened since I first posted was that CDDB returned an incorrect track listing for a CD I was testing on my new speaker setup! It was Gabrielle - Rise and it gave another Gabrielle album.

Paul.

[Paddy]

nor me - but its hardly the fastest loading app!

I use the classic skin and it speeds things up a bit