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[dwex]

I notice that MC still doesn't support WinXP AutoPlay registration, and hence doesn't show up as an available application when WinXP detects device/media insertion. Supporting this is as simple as setting up a few registry entries in the installer. This is documented in MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/programmersguide/shell_basics/shell_basics_extending/autoplay/autoplay2k_intro.asp. The TweakUI Power Toy lets you play with these entries manually if you want to explore how they work.

I think it's a pretty big outage in positioning the product in the user's environment w.r.t. Windows Media Player - without having this configured, users will get prompted to perform tasks with Windows Media Player where Media Center would also  be a viable choice.

For example, the user must tell MC to take over the Audio CD file association for MC to show up when the user inserts a CD. If these autoplay registry entries are created, the user can be prompted to play the CD or rip the CD, right alongside Windows Media Player, regardless of whether or not they told MC to take over the association.

Another really good example - right click on any removable device and select Properties. Look at the AutoPlay tab. MC should show up here for most devices, I would think. Adding this registry configuration will enable this.

Just a suggestion.

--dwex

[JimH]

dwex,
Thanks for the suggestion.  I've passed it on.

Jim

[slikvik]

Just my vote for this as well.

I would like to use MC9 to play my DVD's automatically, but i have to use WinDVD to do this at the moment becuase I can't select MC9 as a startup app.

As a side note. These are also issues with MC9 that prevent it becoming a competative MEDIA center:

1) Multi Region DVD playback (Maybe zoomplayer would be a good place to look on how to do this, as it also uses third party filters.)

2) Shortcut to hide/unhide an advanced control bar (DVD controls) This should be used for all types of Media, with a slightly different control panel for each type (PVR, Photos etc.) The right click stuff is too unweilding and cannot be put into a remote control.

3) Hairspray does not start a DVD in full screen. (small window!)

These features really stop me from using MC9 for DVD playback, which is a shame because after MP3's that has to be one of the biggest uses of mediaplayback on computers.

Cheers

Vic

[Jaguu]

Well JimH,

that was already suggested months ago, in the early phases of MC9 Beta! The post is almost a repetition of a post of mine early this year! Nowadays users simply expect certain functionalities to follow "Microsoft Style Guide". Point!

It may be a limitation for the creative process in developping new products and expressing new ideas, but at the same time it is a great service offered by Microsoft to ease the way of handling the desktop. It might not always be the best way, but standards have never been optimum solutions, but good or best working ways for a vast majority of a population.

Despite those things that Microsoft imposes on third party developers, their is still a lot of creative freedom left for them.
And your product MC9 is the proof.

It is better to sail in the same direction of the Microsoft boat than against it! We certainly do not want to go back to the old Unix days, where every software product had his own display, printer, font management, keyboard shortcuts, his own interface design etc.

When evaluating new software products, sometimes products with extremely innovative ideas for the human interface come up that are really interesting, but unless their functionality is not really far beyond than that of their competitors, most of the time I go for those that adhere most to the "Microsoft Style Guide"

The new AutoPlay V2 in XP is a really strong feature and many big players make use of it (WinDVD and Roxio as examples). And it seems rather easy to implement!

Deciding not to use it is a source of unnecessary anger for many potential new users and a also a few old ones.

In other words: AutoPlay is the place, where the user has to make crucial decisions, which product to use to perform certain tasks! Not showing up on the dancing place might be fatal!

[Jaguu]

I also second the second post.

Functionality of right-click menus looks sometimes really funny! Best example:

select images, right click and you get a menu such as " Cover Art"  ? I must admit, I never tried it out, might be very interesting to know what will happen there. It might be an idea to select one image of a slide show and define it as the cover art image!

Wherever possible, features and controls should be strictly depend on media type (audio, video, images)

[DocLotus]

Same here.

I use Zoom Player as I can't get MC9 to auto detect my DVD's.

No big loss though as Zoom is SOOO... much better with DVD's then MC9.

[slikvik]

Thats exactly the point. There should be no reason to use zoomplayer when we have MC9.

All it requires is a different control panel for each media type.

I FORGOT:  A really important feature if you want to use a PC as a set-top DVD player is the ability to stop bloody PC Friendy from starting up when you put a disc in!!! Please implement that as well.

Cheers

Vic

[Chris Shaw]

There should be no reason to use zoomplayer when we have MC9.

Except that Zoom is much better than MC for video playback. MC is getting there, but here's a selection of Zoom's advantages:

Variable speed playback
Frame jog control
Colour control
Bookmarks
Aspect ratio control for Quicktimes
Access to DirectShow filters' properties
Mouse wheel assignable to various functions (zoom, skip through file etc.)
Direct go to

Don't get me wrong. MC's organisation and audio functions beat Zoom hands down, and its much easier to use. I use MC for all my day-to-day video watching, but there are times I can't do something and I have to reach for Zoom.

[Nikolay]

XP style autoplay will not be implemented in MC 9.0. The code required to register with the AutoPlay is fairly complicated, so it would be unwise to add it to the almost finished version of MC. We can implement it in the next version of MC.

Nikolay

[Jaguu]

Nikolay,
thank you for sharing J River's position! I know from my own experience that sometimes little requests are very complex to code while big and complex requests are very easy to code.

And for us to know that it is on your agenda, just with a different time frame is really comforting!