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[Yangus]

So far I've had no problems playing any sort of media but I keep getting this message asking me if I want to download Windows Media 9. I don't want to. How do I stop the message popping up?

[KingSparta]

What Kind Of Files Are You Trying To Play When It Pops Up?

[Yangus]

It comes up every time I open a library containing video files, before I've tried to play anything. Once I've closed the message, everything seems to work fine.

[jakobluck]

i get this message too -- it comes up seemingly randomly.

[Nikolay]

Yangus,

Windows Media 9 (WM9) and Windows Media Player 9 (WMP9) are very different things. Size of WM9 is only 4MB and it includes only codecs which are neccessary to play various audio and video files. WM9 does not include player itself. Media Center does not need WMP9 but it needs WM9.

This Windows Media 9 message will come up every time you try to play video files if you don't have WM9 installed.

The reason is because before playing a video file we don't know the format of stream inside the file.

WM9 will install Windows Media Codecs and quite a few other codecs which might be useful for playing back video files.

Is there a specific reason you don't want to install WM9?

Thanks,
Nikolay

[jakobluck]

i don't want to install wmp9 because it likes to take control of my file associations (media center for audio, zoomplayer3 for video). the shell integration is also very annoying and hard to shake, and privacy is an issue as well (why does wm8+ send so much info to microsoft servers?).

worst of all, there's no way to uninstall wmp9 once installed beyond using system restore points.

[NoCodeUK]

You can install MC 9 without it taking over any file associations.  I did...  As for not being able to uninstall it without restore points this is true but why would you actually want to uninstall it?  You can't uninstall WMP 8 either...

Adam

[MartinH]

Nikolay just explained, though.  You don't need WMP9, you need WM9 which contains codecs etc. needed to play certain video files.  This doesn't try and take over your system.

[modelmaker]

I'm glad Nikolay explained the difference between wm9 &  wmp9 tho I still don't trust either one of them.

I once made the mistake of installing wmp9 and because of all the security crap it wouldn't play a lot the videos/movies I already had. It then took two & a half hours on the phone with a microsoft tech to get wmp9 out of my computer! My ATI All In Wonder card & program rarely had any trouble playing my video collection - it evidently has all the codecs it needs and updates them as needed - without all the security.

I Certainly understand the apprehension about installing wm9 (I get the message as well). When you go to instaLL it and read the license agreement you have to agree to all the security stuff, which means you giving over control to windows media.

So, isn't there a source for the codecs that will work with media center without involving microsoft ?

[Yangus]

OK, I went and installed it. The player's still version 8 so hopefully it won't do any damage.
Honestly, after having to live with WMP 9 on my previous system, I'd vowed never to have anything to do with Microsoft's "entertainment" software ever again.

Cheers.

[knickelfarz]

Maybe you would like to give "Media Player Classic" (current ver. 6.4.5.2) a try ... it looks and behaves like the old Windows Media Player that came with WinNT and Win2k and plays almost everything (even ogm and surround). It's freeware and can be downloaded here: http://www.gabest.org/mpc.php

[KingSparta]

well if you guys are all worried about windows media 9, do not ever buy a new computer.

Maybe it's me, but i don't have a problem with it, and nothing in windows Media player 9 takes control over any of my files.

[knickelfarz]

well if you guys are all worried about windows media 9, do not ever buy a new computer.

WMP9 has got a lot of strange stuff inside (Hello Mr. Gates, here is my daily list of files from user ******), the GUI behaves like something that I don't want to use and causes eyesore. Why do not install something else if possible? What about MC9 + some codecs, for example?

[kwake]

I've had bad experiences with Windows Media Player 9 (and I suspect their codecs have something do do with it as well, but can't be sure).

My problem: After installing WMP9 whenever I went into Windows Explorer to manipulate .AVI files, I had frequent ( I mean I could reproduce it very easily) explorer.exe crashes - nothing catastrophic, just explorer hanging for a few seconds and restarting.

This resulted in some of my tray icons not coming back even though the program was still running, and a pain in the behind.

Since I couldn't uninstall WMP9, I restored my trusty Norton Ghost image and now all is well (without WMP9 or its codecs).

I don't seem to need the WMP codecs, I'm not sure why Media Centre needs to ask for them to be installed.

I'm biased enough now to say no every time I'm prompted.

Cheers,
Kwake

[KingSparta]

>> I'm biased enough now to say no
>> every time I'm prompted.
so does my wife