DONT download Windows Media player 9 !!!! SNOOP WARE and you cant

[sam sarrha]

get rid of it.. if you try you will lose all your music.. the entire library.... it took all the media i had..

It checks liscence's for things i paid for on line and things i stored i paid for..its grey box once on will not leave, locked up the puter... this is bull shit.

[freetobegay]

1. You can set it so it doesn't check liscence's

I happen to love Windows Media 9!

[Tina H]

2. In Europe Microsoft was hit with antitrust liability . . .

for packaging Windows with the Media Player bundled too closely.

Paging, Candidate Kerry, clean up in the antitrust aisle.

[apnu]

3. don't useWM9 for anything but avi's and mpg's

Download WinAmp or iTunes for free!

When installing WM9 it asks you if you want it to check for licenses by default. You have to remove that check to avoid this problem.

Either way, use Micro$oft as little as possible. I'm a FireFox/TunderBird/Trillian/iTunes cat myself. M$ is ONLY the operating system on this machine and nothing more.

[mermaid]

6. Or

You can download MusicMatch Jukebox for free, too.
'Tis what I use, anyway..

Cool features...you can drop your own CD's to your computer library, so that if your CD ever gets damaged, you can make yourself a replacement copy. You can still purchase online downloadable individual songs for just 99 cents, or whole albums at varying reasonable prices.

No limit to how many copies you can make of a song you have paid for!

[apnu]

11. that's good stuff too..

my point is, why settle for what's given to you out-of-the-box on a windows operating system? Bleach.... Bill Gates will swallow your soul if given the chance.

[tridim]

4. Hmm... That's news to me

My WMP9 works fine with both licensed and unlicensed files. Sounds like you might have some other malware installed.

[Tina H]

5. yes, but if I am not mistaken

Windows Media player updates automatically -- and that you can't opt out of that feature. (90% sure of this -- someone correct me if I am wrong). In other words, what is true today of your media player may not be true tomorrow.

It all depends on whether M$ ever feels like they might maximize profits by changing their software (albeit installed on your hardware). If Bill Gates goes to lunch with Mr. Oppenheim or Ms. Rosen or Mr. Valenti, you may find that you suddenly have a media player with brand new rules and restrictions on your hard drive.

[DS1]

9. Zonealarm catches setup_wm.exe trying to get out now and then

it's looking for updates, but just about every app these days does that automatically. Still, I don't let it, it could be sending back viewing habits to M$. That's the reason why I hate Real Player.

[Tina H]

10. I still seem to recall that M$

can force people to update Media Player to a greater extent than a software supplier can force other software to be updated. I don't know the technical details, and I am sure that super-tech-savvy people have and will figure out ways around forced updates. Still, as a practical matter my understanding is that Windows Media player is more forceably updated than other software (including Windows itself).

My understanding is that the justification had to do with Digital Rights Management, which is the source of the consternation that got this thread started in the first place.

BTW, I am especially annoyed at Windows because I am semi-convinced that one of their recent updates is causing big problems on my home pc. Can't wait for LINUX to be a practical alternative.

[madrchsod]

7. older versions of media player are better

and free of this crap..the problem is that you can`t download it anymore. windows 9 sucks- in fact microsoft sucks.....

[starroute]

8. Media Player Classic is a great alternative

http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/