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Windows Media Player 11

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Microsoft has released yet another update to one of its ever-popular programs. This time it's the new Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) that's full of new kicks and features. It's interface has been completely re-done and new elements have been added to WMP11.

Probably the first thing that regular users of Windows Media Player will see different when they first see WMP11 is the re-designed interface. The new interface features the "glassy" look that all of Microsoft's new software products have, such as Internet Explorer 7 beta and Office 2007 beta 2. They are all matching the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. The new interface features a new black glossy texture that gives WMP11 a sort of dark look, but it definately looks better than the old traditional blue interface seen on WMP10 and 9. At the top of the player, you'll see the familiar Now Playing, Library, Rip, Burn, and Sync buttons. One thing new with these toolbar buttons is that now they have a subtile drop-down box under them that revel a whole bunch of options and features. These small menu's effectively hide features that are not commonly used, therefore dramatically free up and unclutter WMP11's general interface, which makes it a lot more friendlier to use. Like WMP10, version 11 hides its menu system, now called the Classic Menu. You can access the Classic Menu if you want by right-clicking on any area of the top menu area and it will appear.

WMP11's New Interface
Windows Media Player 11's new black "glass-like" interface that is uncluttered and easy to use.

Besides the general interface, Microsoft has also improved on the way users can browse, sort, and view their music and photo galleries using Windows Media Player 11. In pervious version of WMP, the music library was just a long list of text that is a lot like what Apple's iTunes uses. Well now with WMP11, the view is far more graphical complete with icons featuring album art in all of the main library view styles, including Artist, Album, Genre, Title, and Year. This is a huge improvement and allows you to locate your music a lot quicker than hunting through a long list of text.

WMP11's Music Library View
WMP11 features a new way to look at your music library. Now you can see their actual album art and other graphical representations.

Like WMP10, WMP11 works with photos and videos as well as music. However, WMP11 hides the difficulty of working with these two media types by hiding photos and videos by default. To access photos and videos, you have to click the new Categories button, which then provides a bread crumb trail, similar to the Windows Explorer Address bar, that shows "where" you are in the whole media library.

WMP11 Picture Viewing
Windows Media Player 11 provides the ability to view photos, similar to the way that WMP10 did. However, in WMP11 you access the feature a little differently.

With WMP10, Microsoft included a ton of included online media services with Media Player. These services all still work in WMP11 with an extra download, but this time, Napster, FYE, and even MSN Music are no longer included in the default download of WMP11 and instead only includes MTV's new URGE service, which Microsoft is touting as future of online music downloads in its continued fight against Apple's iTunes Music Store. In our short time using MTV's URGE with WMP11, we've concluded that it doesn't even compare to Apple iTunes. It just doesn't offer the features nor the selection.

MTV URGE
MTV's new URGE online music library is the only online music service included with WMP11.

You can now sync with smaller devices using a new Shuffle Sync feature that is just like a feature in iTunes that Apple introduced with the iPod shuffle. With the new Multi-PC Sync, you can sync a single device between two or more computers. As with past Windows Media Player versions, you still cannot sync with the Apple iPod, which will turn away a lot of MP3 player users from switching to WMP11. There are many WMA-based online music stores that you can connect to with WMP 11, but none impress us or consumers as much as Apple's iTunes.

In conclusion, I see Windows Media Player 11 as a big improvement over past versions, in terms of both the interface and the features. There are still a few quirks that make us wonder if it will really convince loyal users of other music programs to switch to WMP11. For regular users of Windows Media Player, you'll definately want to update to this new version. You'll really be happy with it.

You can download Windows Media Player 11 free at Download.com.