STUNNING review. Well written.

wait for it...

wait for it...

Wait a sec, what paces did you put it through with your extensive media library?
What paces did you put "pretty much every other media jukebox available today" through? What jukeboxes are they? What comparison actually occured here? What jukebox would I be more impressed with? For library functionality? Mp3 player syncing? Streaming from the web? Streaming to other devices?

Wow, I wish I could get paid for downloading a program, clicking a menu or two, and being unimpressed.

I'm more specifically unimpressed because the synch to my Archos AV700 is completely stuffed now. DVR-MS files take 4-5 times longer to convert (reported to WMP newsgroup and acknowledged by MS 2 months before fianl release), when I attach the device it takes 10 minutes or so to work out which files need synchronising and if I open MCE while doing this the application freezes. Some files already on the device show up as already on the device, others show up as skipped. Several large video files from DVR-MS already on the Archos aren't recognised as being already on there so my PC is going through the long, long process of reconverting them at much slower speeds - and I'm running a dual Xeon system with 2Gb RAM. The WMP ripper is still unable to recognise many UK CDs weeks after their release e.g. new Pet Shop Boys, Paul Carrack etc, hardly obscure stuff.

chuck in response #1 is right. i could write a more extensive (and USEFUL) from the time my cheeks hit the porcelin to the time my hand hits the two-ply.

They pay you for this?

Dude, you're definitely no Mary Jo. Get some info, not vapid spin.

Seriously, they call this journalism? Bring back Mary Jo, all these schmoes here are horrible.

I agree with Joseph. Bring back Mary Jo or I'll stop visiting this web site if we continue getting articles like this.

doesn't sound like much of an upgrade over wmp9, except ms has put in some links to buy music, and thats just spam. still doesn't hold candle to real one player for sound or functionality. an upgrade should be better for the user not for for ms.

You call this a "review"!
.... pure drivel....

Whew! I can tell you really put it through its paces! What with all great points you brought up! Oh wait...there weren't any...Alistair Burns comment is a more useful review than this joke that he is commenting on. Just useless.

I have to agree with the previous posts, thats a pretty awful review. One has to wonder how much time you actually spent with WMP 11. To say its "so so" compared to "prety much any other media jukebox available today" really makes me think you either tested the wrong product or you really have no idea what you're talking about.

Yeah, Chucks right, where's the beef on this article?
Boo... Boo...

Anyway, I have a very huge music library, all legit music on original Music CD's. I did notice that MediaPlayer 11 did have a hard time mixing up the CD artwork downloaded and the music published dates were mixed up and incorect on some of my older CDs. Yes the MS'MediaPlayer is an improvement over the older versions. However, I will stick with iTunes after spending some (real) time with the Microsoft application. It's too bad that MS doesn't play or rip in mp4 -- But we all know how that goes.

God bless the internet, where lacklustre writing is held to account like nowhere else.

For the record, I agree. I used to get F's for this type of thing in high school. Well, not really, but I would have.

I was realy looking forward to some info about the library functionality. Earlier versions couldnt cope with my 100gb+ mp3 collection, witch is not thát big at all, right?
It looks like the article is somehow truncated, right after the last alinea. It's not a bad piece, just not complete.

Can we see the rest please?

Just so so???

In term of functionality, WMP11 has everything.
I like how WMP11 arranges the library (even itunes7 copies WMP11 style), it can handle large collection of MP3 and the response is very quick.
Also, it only need small chunk of memory.

But, I can't install in Windows 2003 server :(

Hmm - I added this site hoping it might be a repalacement for the old osopinion site, and provide some useful microsoft news for my workday (its on my morning dailies)

however - the two articles i hit this morning were absolutely useless. and they were the only ones i felt were interesting...

on a side note - i have roughly 180gb of mp3's (all correctly directoried and tagged)
WMP10 & MCE can't cope with this - the search is pathetically slow (minutes) compared to winamp on the same library (a half-second or so per character on the as-you-type search)
also, the MCE music interface is unusable - fine with 5 albums, crap with 50, and unusable with 500+

mary jo wasnt much better. she simply re-worded what real news-diggers found out. good riddens, but this bloke's post was WEAK.

i read the headline. then read the comments, then went back to read the article. wow. this really IS lousy.

however, so that someone who clicks on this might get something worthwhile out of it, windows media player 11 handles huge libraries (like mine) very gracefully. the search feature (returning results as you type) alone makes it worth the download.

navigation is also much more intuitive. i love the "back" button, which keeps a history as i browse my library. SUPER convenient.

and synchronization has been improved as well. plug in the item and wmp11 prompts you to name it, then drag and drop to the synchronization list from your searches. i understand that it will synchronize from the device to the computer, but i haven't used it yet.

so wmp11 is truly the first media player that works for me. the best part, it's a free upgrade.

Was this just the teaser portion of the article? I agree with earlier comments that this piece could have been descent IF it had not been truncated after the opening remarks. Let's hear it Jim. Can you release the rest of the article for us?

And no mention of Media Player 11's refusal to allow you to back up your media licenses? If I buy a song on the internet and then upgrade my computer, I'll have to buy the song all over again. That is, if I use media player 11.

So what did you compare this to? not iTunes right?
which is buggy and slow, what other players did you compare it to? what are the results feature to feature and performance, Where did it fall behind in features, Exactly what is it that made you come to this decision.

Every time you do these half baked articles, you lose just a little more of your credibility.

I have a small library, and the one change from WMP 10 that will likely keep WMP 11 off my computer permanently is the removal of the quick access menu - two clicks, and I could access any artist or album I wanted, without even restoring the player from the taskbar. Sure, it becomes untenable if you have a large library, but it works great for me.

Maybe this site needs to be peer-reviewed. The two articles I hit this morning is just disappointing...

this thing sux out loud man you people need to get a life!!!!!!!! i agree w/ chuck

Just wanted to respond to some of the comments here.
Still getting used to the new format and I did make a decision to do more of a quick take than say a large 1,000 word review that I might do at eWeek. Also, I try to avoid some of the benchmark type things you see in other reviews like this as, unless you see something really strange (super slow or super fast burning or ripping) it doesn't really mean much.
There was also a question on what the comparisons are and that is very valid. I tend to be pretty hard on jukeboxes and don't like most of the major ones out there today. I'm not a big fan of iTunes, though I do think it is better and more capable than this version of Windows Media Player.
Currently my favorite is an old version of MusicMatch, which while not perfect does most of what I want and doesn't get in my way as much as other players. (I don't like the newer versions of MusicMatch which I find to be much more annoying.

Terrible review.

It's true that I kind of wonder what the Media Player Team does with their time -- MP11 not having feature parity with iTunes is just baffling (Hello? Podcast subscriptions?)

But at the same time, thre are new features, there are improvements, really these deserve a better job than a brief opinion piece.

Welcome to the world of mal-journalism. Where a headline crafted to provoke contempt is followed by a leading paragraph that appears to convey a sense of depth. While in actuality, the entire article is written with a pre-formed opinion on what media player software should be without putting forth any solvent points on how MP11 could be improved or what actually is bad about it.

Next time just save us the trouble of reading through four paragraphs by stating "It came out, it works better, but I still don't like it."

I use WMP10 because it is relatively light weight, almost as light as WinAmp and it stays under 10% CPU usage. How is WMP11 in comparison?

P.S. - I prefer WinAmp, but WMP works better with Yahoo! Music DRM files.

Please show more respect. I agreed with forget Mary Jo...

Awful review. No rationale given. No specifics. Condescending headline. Joke.

Ask Jim about it, he hates everything!

He also forgot to mention the new upgrade can leave you UNABLE TO BURN to a blank CD. Then there is no simple way to revert -back- to WMP10 which worked fine for me. Once again Microsoft has led people into an upgrade nightmare. My advice is to WAIT TO INSTALL until they fix all these outstanding and very important issues. The look is OK but let's face it, if it doesn't function as well as the crappy looking WMP10 then why upgrade? Maybe they want to suck some more marketing data out of you and force this memory hog URGE on everyone (which is MTV/VH1 for Noobs). I'm very sorry I upgraded.

I have now removed this site from my favorites, and following Mary Jo's blog on Microsoft. This site died when she stopped writing on it. Way to kill a good resource guys!

They are 'moderating' the comments. You can leave a comment, see it appear, and then a few hours later it is gone.

NO CRITICISM ALLOWED

I have to agree with the other comments about this "review". It would seem more like a blog entry than a review.

Ouch. I find it very difficult to manage my MP3's in WMP11.
1. Can't drag to rename or consolidate genres any more (remember add/replace genre?)
2. Can't click-drag around a bunch of files to change artists by dragging them to another artist name.
3. The new tree only shows all nodes expanded, or all nodes closed...if you're trying to compare stuff you now have a lot of scrolling/clicking.
4. If you are in genres, and changing genres to correct the Gracenote-provided genre, and tab through to the next song to change a field (since you can't drag any more), the tab loses its "edit" mode when the first item disappears from the list. In WMP10 the refresh waited for you to tab.

Unimpressed by Jim Rapoza: What a substance-free, amateurish, article.

It is so-called reviews and articles like this is why I cancelled my subscription to eWeek. Then I find there so-called journalists making comments like this about WMP11 in this collum.
Are ANY of these players perfect? No.
Nothing is perfect, I just find it a waste of time to read this nit-pick, it doesn't do this or it doesn't do that stuff. I know, this is a free country, then why doesn't Jim Rapoza build his own Media Player and put his own name on it if he doesn't like what is on the market?

This has the qualities of a 4pm-on-Friday-gotta-get-out-of-here piece. No specifics, no comparisons or contrasts, just a sloppy review. Not one mention on how this stacks up against the 50-100+ music managers/players out there.

mary jo was actually useful. this is slashdot style non-news opinion-based-on-bias-not-fact drivel. the only thing missing is you aren't misinterpreting an original article or making it sound like something it's not.... which I'm sure will come.

mary jo wasn't supposed to be a reviewer, that was the beauty, why I keep this feed... (no longer, though.) she told it like it was, usually kept opinions out of it, and yes she rearranged the words of another's article, it's called PARAPHRASING, which saved a lot of us dudes a lot of time without having to read bias reports full of opinion and BS. just paraphrase the original news clip, go that extra mile and provide a few related news links and how they tie in, and then be done with it.

you suck. go find another job.

Okay, I know this is off the topic of this post but oh well. I am sorely dissapointed in this site now. Its the Saturday after a very widely publicized deal with Microsoft and Novell. Last time I checked your website name was "Microsoft Watch." Are you people sleeping there? Because two archrivals have just formed a partnership and the best you have to come up with is a story about Windows Media Player?

This site used to be one of my regular stops. It was full of insiteful, useful and professionally presented.

Since the changes it is has NO useful content. Obviously written by excited monkeys.

Many teenager written blogs has more professional content than this now useless site.

Anyone know where Mary Jo has gone?

Nice.... This is basically 2 story's on your site that are worthless. 0 for 2 today. Do your writers know how to write something with some substance?

Dude u call this a review? seriously, have u installed WMP 11? were u normal when u wrote this "review"? if u dont like WMP 11 just say it instead of lying to us! or are u workin for Steve? shame on u for this so called "review". WE DON'T EXPECT THIS LEVEL OF JOURNALISM FROM ANYONE!

Here's a slightly better brief review:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/gizmos/0,72006-0.html?tw=rss.index

Steve, Mary Jo is now with ZDNET. You can find her here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/.

The interface changes alone are worth the upgrade in my opinion.

You called that a review?

I'm sorry but Microsoft Watch is really went to the lowest level of journalism.

How lame. YOU SHALL PAY FOR YOUR GROSS MISUSE OF DIALECT (read...useless review).

I've been unimpressed by Jim Rapoza's writings for a long time-----ever since I subscribed---and un-subscribed to eWeek. I don't see how he got this job, or how he keeps it.

This could be the worst review I have ever read. I think Windows Media Player 11 has a slick new intuitive interface, and is considerably faster in everything it does.

Please try taking the time the thoroughly review the product and maybe even list other products you are comparing it to. I am just about to remove this site from my favorites due to poor content.

I agree that the review was superficial and not very helpful. My favorite reviews are the Neat Net Tricks Software Reviews at http://www.neatnettricks.com/SoftwareReviews/ . They have a panel of unpaid reviewers, and generally 4-6 people review each piece of software. Each writes an independent review, so you get multiple perspectives and opinions. The reviews tend to be thorough, honest, and useful.

Do you know how to write a real review?
anti- WMP hatter

cant even burn the songs that you download so i wasted my money please reply

How do I change from WMP 11 back to original WMP

How do I change from WMP 11 back to original WMP

Well whatever the paces were, he did them in the pitch dark, i.e. did not move from the spot.

Don't use the player for anything more than playing music either directly from CD or from my CD collection copied to HD. Not particularly large. On my average powerful PC 2 observations:

1. It takes an awful long time to be able to browse to e.g. ZZtop..... takes ages to load the full library.

2. The bastard eats, probably because the only way to achieve any speed once fully loaded, 650mb Virtual Swap File..... and it stays like that until u close the player..... awful.

Well whatever the paces were, he did them in the pitch dark, i.e. did not move from the spot.

Don't use the player for anything more than playing music either directly from CD or from my CD collection copied to HD. Not particularly large. On my average powerful PC 2 observations:

1. It takes an awful long time to be able to browse to e.g. ZZtop..... takes ages to load the full library.

2. The bastard eats, probably because the only way to achieve any speed once fully loaded, 650mb Virtual Swap File..... and it stays like that until u close the player..... ghastly.

I installed WMP 11 and now cannot access MusicMatch (the way WMP 10 did). Anyone know how to fix this, or was this feature dropped from WMP 11?

jonny149

jonny570

Having upgraded to version 11 yesterday. I can suddenly no longer hear streaming audio from my favourite site. Is this a glitch in Windows Media Player 11? I don't know but I don't see any other reason for it. I wish I hadn't installed it. (I tried restoring my system, but it has left the glitch in tact.)

what a lame ass review. get off your fat ass and actually critically write about something.

jonny323

Will the writer do a real review now or at least have the nads to face critics with a very legit beef?

I you upgrade to WMP11 and you had purchased and downloaded songs from an authorized site (such as Wal-Mart), in all probability your DRM files will be corrupted or missing and you will not be able to play the songs requiring licenses. Then you will have fun rolling back to WMP10. Save time and don't upgrade to WMP11.

I have the same comment on lost media playing rights with WMP11. I down load music from UK Sounds and have now lost all licenses for my down loaded music. What was Microsoft thinking when it developed WMP11!
This is the second time that I have installed WMPII thinking foolishly that Microsoft had realized its mistakes and corrected them. Indeed what a foolish thought. Fortunately it is relatively easy to switch back to WMP10 and to restore the media playing rights which is precisely what I will now do.

I agree that this is a weak review, but I also agree with the headline of "unimpressed by Windows Media Player 11."

Honestly, I think Microsoft was so focused on making the player look "sleek" that they forgot about funcionality. Since I've upgraded to version 11 I've been unable to stream content from anywhere on the web. Even when I obtain the exact url to the streaming content, guess what? There's no url bar to be found in the player to type it in! I've been through all the "Extra options..." and still can't find a way to access the Internet through the player. Maybe I've missed something, but even so, this should be a pretty obvious addition to any media player.

Microsoft is trying to hard to emulate iTunes (which is also a horrific piece of software) Aesthetics are nice, but personally I'd prefer a player that works.

Hi,

I upgraded my media player to 11 last week - I was happy with the old version but I have problems with the new one.

1) - can't burn, the screen recognized I have a blank in the drive but doesn't do anything.

2) - how do I show the "total time" of a CD like 72.31, the older version had it at the bottom.

3) - when I put a disc in to play it automatically wants to rip it. Is there a switch to change it to manaual.

Regards,

John - I big music buff/collector/euthisthist

Hi, since loading this commercial wmp11 that not just links to selling sites but I am sure logs your activity for third party sites that then target you for spam and other sh~~ with preferences for you musical / viewing taste. It also does not like unasigned video/graphic drivers and locks up your pc when trying to view even simple vcd format.the thing is slow,uses to many links,occupies too much memory and has too much emphasis on appearance and not enough to user pleasure.Who needs icons as big as a house?
verdict.Looking "for something better."

I have been testing this Media Player as extensively as one can for this last week and found that although the processing times for most functions have gone down and the layout of the button has been simplified and is sleeker; there is not much difference with this media player.

The largest difference if one that I find the most brutally annoying thing about this "upgrade". There is no way to change the view from seeing that stupid screen hogging Album Art, or worse yet stupid blank CD case when you have your own original music in your library. I used WMP in the past because of the convenient library I could list in any which way to view my 80GIG library. With these stupid, cumbersome albums slapped right in the middle of where I would like to view 20-50 songs at once, I will no longer use this horrible excuse for an upgrade. Not to mention to simply find and play a song, I have to sift through sometimes 8 albums to find the song because I don't know which album Dave Matthews put Two Step??! Add a column if you want to give us more sorting options. At LEAST give the option to NOT have to sort our library album by album.

The best comparison I can make for you folks is this WMP 11 is relation to the WMP 10, is the difference between having your CDs in a CD booklet with all the songs labeled on each CD to putting them all back in the CD cases and on a shelf. I don't know about you, but when you have 20,000 songs -- I'll roll with the CD booklet, thanks.

If you like bells and whistles and new buttons with no real major improvement. If you prefer pictures to look at opposed to functionality, you'll love it; otherwise this "upgrade" is a waste of time. They lost the best thing WMP 10 had going for it, the ability to view, sort, and organize a large media library easily.

Lastly, and this only applies to those who use this feature, and I believe they will be doing something to rectify this. It seems that the Sync feature has been limited to those MP3 players with a firmware/driver upgrade that doesn't seem to exist. I've tried 5 different bits of firmware or drivers and every time I get an error message saying I need to update my driver. Roll it back, nothing, get the newest, nothing. I've got 2 week old songs stuck on my player and no way to get them off now.

That is all -- Overall this player only suits those with small small libraries and where a person A: Has the album art B: is already aware of which songs on what album C: buys/downloads their CDs by albums and not one by one (I have 1 artist, 5 songs, 5 albums = 10 more clicks to find one song and 5 big eyesores being looked at when I could just have a concise list.

PS - It blows my mind "professionals" seem to view the cumbersome, novelty of the album art as a big upgrade. I'm planning a puppet show of my review because I'm sure they'll be able to understand that better than this writing I'm doing now. They must like pretty pictures laid out to explain things to them if they like the album art function in this new media player.

Didn't care for it either. Used it and downloaded a couple of songs. But found out that when recording the songs... require to log on URGE and then pay "the Piper". They answered the legality part of artist rights!
Music is downloaded into your machine but will not be read on another or any other WMP. The pictures of the album can make you want the old library listing!

I would rather then wait and buy the CD's, at the store, I'm not in a hurry.

Will be returning to WMA10 and awaiting some open source programing for WMA11 to make choices.

Nerds.

WMP11 was the worst thing I ever did to my laptop. I still haven't recovered. Spotty playback, major codec headaches for avi, video library database gone (because in the case of most video, most of the info (actors, genre, etc) is NOT stored in the individual files, and if you "upgrade" you can't go back). The thing I hated most is that Microsoft suckered me by calling it an "update" for media player 10. I thought it was a patch, not a whole new bug collection. Don't get too excited about the "slick" new interface either. The lists are full of one-letter A-B-C subheadings that often take up more space than the items listed (e.g., the list of Genres), and CANNOT be disabled. Makes me mad just remembering how much time I spent trying to make it MINE and get rid of all the "noise" and useless crap. Search-as-you-type gives the impression of coolness if you're just fooling around, but when you stop and think about it, it rarely makes any difference to how you USE it. The changes in the interface are much like this review - superficial and useless. The rest of WMP11 has all the characteristics of a virus - it's just harder to disinfect.

This review is more of an ad than an honest assessment of the product. Those icons in the upper menu would never constitute a "toolbar" to a tech-minded reader. Did WMP v11 do away with the actual toolbar, available in previous versions...or must I go the following route to modify the buffer (for broken streams)?

1. Start > Run > "mplayer2" > OK.
2. View > Options > Advanced tab.
3. Highlight "Streaming Media (Windows Media) >
Change.
4. Increase buffering to 30 seconds of data.
5. In "Protocols" section, uncheck all but HTTP;
i.e., uncheck Multicast, UDP, and TCP. If
problem not resolved, you can undo changes
made, following these steps.
5. Apply > OK > Exit.

Someone please let me know where the settings are hidden for increasing the size of the network buffer in v11; for if such features have been expunged then the "upgrade" is more of a step toward crapware. Vista smacks of the same: more glitz and less functionality. I'll use v10 until a true upgrade is offered.

Media Player 11 is a chunk of shit. Do not install it. It hangs and crashes all the time.

this upgrade is a mess i can't play my music on it so what point of a upgrade yeah it said it a easy upgrade but is not.