...94Mb of it from Microsoft - which was a little bigger than I had expected it to be - but that's Microsoft for you!
Installation
------------
Installation was simple enough and problem free and within about 2 minutes and one reboot it was running.
First Time
----------
The most ... Read review
many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode and recover data easily with automatic backups to your home or business network. You can also connect to
including the ability to run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP mode. For added security, you can encrypt your data with BitLocker and BitLocker To Go.
many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode and recover data easily with automatic backups to your home or business network. You can also connect to
many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode and recover data easily with automatic backups to your home or business network. You can also connect to
many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode and recover data easily with automatic backups to your home or business network. You can also connect to
including the ability to run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP mode. For added security, you can encrypt your data with BitLocker and BitLocker To Go.
including the ability to run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP mode. For added security, you can encrypt your data with BitLocker and BitLocker To Go.
favorite photos, videos, and music. You can even watch, pause, rewind, and record TV. Get the best entertainment experience with Windows 7 Home Premium.
favorite photos, videos, and music. You can even watch, pause, rewind, and record TV. Get the best entertainment experience with Windows 7 Home Premium.
favorite photos, videos, and music. You can even watch, pause, rewind, and record TV. Get the best entertainment experience with Windows 7 Home Premium.
A review by richardleonard on Microsoft - Windows Media Player 7 August 28th, 2001
Author's product rating:
Instructions / Help
Good
Ease of use
Satisfactory
Ease of Installation
Excellent - very quick and easy
Value For Money
Good
Advantages:
Free media player
Disadvantages:
Download is a little big (9 . 94Mb)
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
A few weeks ago I thought it was about time I try updating some of my software to the latest downloads - and Media Player just happened to be one of them. It took a total of about 45 mins to download all 9.94Mb of it from Microsoft - which was a little bigger than I had expected it to be - but that's Microsoft for you!
Installation ------------ Installation was simple enough and problem free and within about 2 minutes and one reboot it was running.
First Time ---------- The most noticeable difference is the look - it's got a far more professional style to it than previous versions. I have to say I do like the graphics. Also, whilst an audio track is playing there's a nice graphical display where a video would display. Nothing new - it's been done all over the place, but it's still quite nice and there's loads of styles to choose from. Likewise, you can also change the main skin of the program to make the whole window look completely different, extra ones can also be downloaded.
The "expanded" view is, I feel, rather too big. There's a column of button down the left of the window which let you change between what's playing, media guide, CD audio, media library, radio tuner, portable device and skin chooser.
Media Guide ----------- The media guide is a web page which loads and is what Microsoft call an "electronic magazine" which is updated daily with music and videos. There's an e-mail newsletter you can subscribe to (which I haven't) and this generally seems like a good idea to introduce users to new media.
CD Audio -------- Simply a CD player with bits. The bits however are quite good. You can copy tracks digitally to your media library (ie, copy to your hard drive) so then you can create your own playlists. Again, this is nothing new, but it's so easy to do in only one click!! The program can also connect to the Internet to retreive the track names - which could save yourself a lot of typing (as I've had to do in the past). It's also apparently got a facility to create music CD's from your playlist music - but I haven't found this yet. I'll write about this later if I do.
Media Library ------------- This is split into audio, video, playlists and radio. At first I didn't find this particularly easy to use, until I realised you had to create a custom playlist first before you could drag music into the playlist folder. I'd expected the playlist to be a list itself, not a "container of playlists" - still - there we go.
Radio Tuner ----------- Again, this connects to the Internet and allows you to stream (play as you download) music. The quality over a 56k modem is excellent - I'm currently listening to Capital FM whilst writing this and it's playing at 22k/sec without breaking up at all. You can search for stations matching your preferences (e.g. location, music type etc) and add these to a saved list for easy reference in future.
Portable Device --------------- If you've got an MP3 player I would imagine this is very useful - but I haven't so I can't really comment. By the looks of it you drag and drop music from the left hand window (your PC) to the right hand window (your MP3 player) and it'll show you (in percent) how much space you have left. Clever stuff eh?!!!
General ------- Before I wrote this I wasn't sure if I liked Media Player 7 - but looking into the features more I think I do. It's just a shame it takes up so much screen size in "expanded mode". OK, so you can "compact" it and it's not too bad, I'd just rather it was a bit similar to winamp with detachable bits (playlist, equaliser etc). That way it'd be a bit more customisable, but overall I'm glad I did download it and it's worth at least trying it.
Advantages: free software, plays most formats Disadvantages: microsoft, is a huge file to download
...it, I have praised a Microsoft program! But with good reason, please read on…
** How to get it? **
Just like Internet Explorer this is a free bit of software, just what we like to hear! The windows media player does come bundled with all versions of Windows from as far back as Windows 3.1 if I remember correctly! Over those years as you can imagine it has changed a lot, both in the formats it plays and how it looks. Any way back to how to get it…
... ...download this off of the Microsoft Website. This can be done from the Windows Update Website located at: windowsupdate.microsft.com. Or the Windows Media Player can be downloaded from the Windows Media Player Website located at: www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia.
The latest version is Windows Media Player version 7.1, this is for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, and Windows 2000. There is a different version for Windows XP, but I will ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Its free Disadvantages: But its not a patch on Winamp
...am sick and tired of Microsoft applications that take over your system and write themselves into places that they were never authorized to sit in. Internet Explorer is a great example. Here is another.
Media Player 7 is one of the most bloated pieces of software I have seen from their stable - they must have used the thesis why do thigns small and simple like WinAmp when you can take over the entire screen and have lots of whistles and bells like ... ...is there any need for Microsoft to go writing their own? I doubt any WinAmp users will be switching to Media PLayer, that's for sure.
In summary then, what we have is a piece of software that Microsoft see as a step forward but which learns none of the lessons of WinAmp and tries to do things its own way, failing in the process. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Good looking, good quality playback, lots of features Disadvantages: Bloated, larger download than Winamp
Microsoft's software is well know for being bloated, buggy and often slow. Although a 'little' larger than previous versions, WMP7 is actually quite good.
Firstly, it does away with the look of the older versions, replacing it with Winamp-style skins. It goes one further, however, by allowing complete rearrangement of the controls rather than just altering the look of them. This leads to some pretty nifty looking designs, such as Toothy - which ... ...to be compared to Winamp (and Sonique, to a lesser extent), and much is personal preference. Winamp is small and sleek, and has some very nice plugins. WMP7, however, gives better playback (on my hardware at least) and the interface is much nicer to use. The mini-browser built in to Winamp is a little limiting, and MS have gone one further here too. The support for burning CDs from MP3s, recording MP3s and even transfering songs to a PDA or MP3 player ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: easy to use, plethora of formats Disadvantages: slow,spying on us,
...8.0 (WMP)? If yes, then Microsoft knows about it!!! Amazing eh? Not very difficult for them, I reckon. But what about us? Why do we have to be all the time so buttoned up when we want to use a Microsoft’s software? The other day I wrote about problems with MSN messengerand that’s why I made some investigation about my WMP 8.0. Sorry for being aggresive a bit about Bill Gate's creatures (or Monsters).I'll be something like the devil's ... ...By doing so Microsoft gathers two information : the movie’s title and the ID of WMP. Moreover Media Player create a small data base in the HardDisk, and contains all the data of the movies that had been played. The question here is WHAT THE HELL MICROSOFT WANT ALL THESE INFO? By doing so, they do not offer anything to us. By spying on us they are not make our life easier. All this data are by default stored in each CD/DVD (that’s why ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Free, versatile, plays almost everything Disadvantages: Takes up a lot of RAM on your computer
...version 7 free from the Microsoft site. This I promptly did.
The great thing about this player is that it plays just about everything from mp3’s, CD’s, videos and streaming audio and video.
You can also copy music from you CD to your hard-drive and copy music from your hard-drive to a CD, all without any software.
Another handy feature is that you can “rip” your CD’s at different sound quality levels and then store ... ...download different skins from the Microsoft site and this will make the player very pleasing to the eye. Also you can program this player to display
several different visuals on your screen, whilst in audio play. You can have everything from a multi-band equalizer to some very funky looking effects. However these are just for visual effects and do not enhance the quality of the sound in any way.
Overall this is a very useful player for music fanatics ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Technology first class - and free with it! Disadvantages: None noticed so far apart from the 30 minute+ download time
...I recently downloaded the latest version of WindowsMediaPlayer7 and I am impressed at the versatility of it and the quality of the downloads. As with the Real players accesing favourite sites is no problem and the latest technology means you can customise the `skins' for the player, download the latest in whatever shade of music you like and even include the videos with Mpeg4. There is also a handy little Adaptec CD writer buried in there too so you can transfer all those favourite sounds to a CD to play in the car. This is what music was made for!...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: none that i have experienced Disadvantages: lots read above
...MediaPlayer7 takes a lot longer to load up then the older visions. Microsoft have tried to make mediaplayer to be a jack of all trade piece of software. Mediaplayer7 tries to do everything but the result is that the interface is quite confusing.
When viewing mpeg you don't get as many options as with the old ones.
The CD player you can't choose your own preferences like other CD players.
I personally think that the different skins you can use is useless. I think microsoft have taken a backwards step with mediaplayer7...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: Needed for some internet options Disadvantages: Slow, useless
...Some time ago I upgraded my mediaplayer to the new version 7. Since then I have only had problems. It takes ages to start up and it never opens up all files, does not import all files from folders, and so on. I have still to find how to make playlists. Plus I think that screen while playing mp3 can be done without.
I would reccommend you upgrade only if you think your computer is good/fast enough to cope with it. If you have mp3 keep using the unsophisticated but reliable winamp....
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Ciao members have rated this review on average not helpful
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