Windows 7 - W7 Media player disaster

Asked By Michael Dobony

16-Nov-09 01:32 PM

I just upgraded to W7 from XP and went about as I always do on Sunday
afternoons getting some worship music together and opened Media Player as I
always do. Unfortunately I discovered the new MP is very difficult to use
now and is missing a critical feature, the ability to edit and view
advanced TAG info. I can no longer access the lyrics I saved in many of the
MP3 files and can not add to them. I do not know how I got my worship
playlist up and opened a second one for just the ones I want to select for
the day. Afterward I tried uninstalling MP and installing an older version.
It will not let me install it. Any ideas on how to load an older version
and get it working under W7? I already tried several compatibility modes
and none of them work.

Mike D.

17-Nov-09 10:14 AM

Exactly, the Advanced Tag Editor has been removed in WMP 12, and there is
no way to add/remove lyrics anymore. See the thread at
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itpromedia/thread/469fb26b-79ca-4a64-8ac6-62161901b714

for more information. However, you could still use an external tool such
as Mp3Tag to edit lyrics.

If you really want to go back to WMP 11, you could follow the
instructions at
http://www.blogsdna.com/2409/downgrade-windows-media-player-12-to-wmp-11-on-windows-7.htm.

Note that this is completely unsupported, so if anything goes wrong, you
are on your own.

Regards

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk

18-Nov-09 07:55 PM

I followed all the directions and it gives a "Windows Media Player is not
installed properly and must be reinstalled" error.

23-Nov-09 09:53 AM

It is just now working at all. The directions are for the pre-release
version of W7 and Microsoft may have crippled the ability to install this
program. Now I cannot get MP12 to reinstall. I have fully uninstalled both
versions and tried to reinstall v12, but continue to get the above message.
Any ideas on how to restore MP12?

23-Nov-09 11:04 AM

Did you revert all the changes you made? Going back to a previous
restore point might work. You could also use Process Monitor to see what
exactly causes the error message.

Like I said, following those instructions is at your own risk.

Regards

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk

23-Nov-09 05:45 PM

No, they did not.  I realize that is a rhetorical comment, but I thought I'd
ease your mind here.  You should not do that because it is a bad idea, but --
there is no anti-code/cripplin' going on.


How did you try to "reinstall"?  If you reinstalled WMP12 using the Turn
Windows Features On or Off control panel, that is the best and only way to
reinstall.

However, part of the steps that would be involved in breaking your system in
order to install WMP11 (or earlier) to it would deliberately corrupt the
system catalog store.  The error you are reporting actually means exactly
that, even if it is worded "more friendlier".

You can try running:
sfc /scannow
from CMD.exe run *as administrator* and see if that gets things back to
normal.  That'll generally revalidate the catalog store.

But: as mentioned, you took your system into your own hands.  You needed to
deliberately hack around the design of Windows to get that incompatible
player on the box.  It *should* be recoverable, but if it is not: go check in
with the hackers providing this type of advice.  After all, they helped
create the mess.... ;-)

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

24-Nov-09 11:31 PM

It hits 14% and stops. Just about ready to start over with XP. It is a lot
less hassle.

25-Nov-09 10:05 AM

It works. I used Revo Uninstall to remove MP11 for W7, but it was still
there and all the links were to it instead of MP12 ~