- Feb 5, 2009
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This one may be worth a sticky.
If you’re like me and you miss having the Windows Media Player toolbar on your taskbar, there is a way to get that feature back. It involves reverting back to WMP11, which IMHO is way better than WMP12 in many other ways than just having the toolbar. I believe WMP11 is much easier and intuitive to use than the new version than ships with Windows 7. This is a hack that requires a bit of registry editing and modification to the Windows services, so don’t attempt it if you are not comfortable messing around with that kind of stuff. There are two zip files you'll need to download. I have run these files and they are virus/malware free.
1. Turn off the “Windows Media Player Network Sharing” service. Click “run” on the start menu and type “services.msc” (without the quotes). Find “Windows Media Player Network Sharing” in the “name” column and look in the “Status” column to the right of it. If it says “started”, right click on the service and select “stop”. If there is nothing in the status column, the service is already stopped and it is good to go. Close the services application.
2. You need to take ownership of a few files so they can be altered. Start by downloading and unzipping this *file*. Double click the file named “Add Take Ownership Option.reg”. This will modify the registry and add a “Take Ownership” option to the right click menu for most folders and files. Right click and take ownership of the following files/folders:
• “Windows Media Player” folder under “Program Files”.
• All files that start with “wmp” in the folder “Windows\System32”
• The file "wmploc.dll.mui" in the folder “Windows\System32\en-US
3. Download and unzip this *file*
4. Run the .exe from the zip file. It will install WMP11, then ask you if you want to restart your computer – select no for this option.
5. Click “run” on the start menu and type “regedit”. Expand “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”, then expand “SOFTWARE”, “Microsoft”, "MediaPlayer”, and “setup”. Right click on “Installed Versions” and delete the key.
6. Now restart your system. Windows Media Player 11 will be installed and will function just as it did in Vista and XP. In case you didn’t know, to turn on the mini player toolbar, right click on your taskbar, select “toolbars”, and check “Windows Media Player”. Enjoy!
If you’re like me and you miss having the Windows Media Player toolbar on your taskbar, there is a way to get that feature back. It involves reverting back to WMP11, which IMHO is way better than WMP12 in many other ways than just having the toolbar. I believe WMP11 is much easier and intuitive to use than the new version than ships with Windows 7. This is a hack that requires a bit of registry editing and modification to the Windows services, so don’t attempt it if you are not comfortable messing around with that kind of stuff. There are two zip files you'll need to download. I have run these files and they are virus/malware free.
1. Turn off the “Windows Media Player Network Sharing” service. Click “run” on the start menu and type “services.msc” (without the quotes). Find “Windows Media Player Network Sharing” in the “name” column and look in the “Status” column to the right of it. If it says “started”, right click on the service and select “stop”. If there is nothing in the status column, the service is already stopped and it is good to go. Close the services application.
2. You need to take ownership of a few files so they can be altered. Start by downloading and unzipping this *file*. Double click the file named “Add Take Ownership Option.reg”. This will modify the registry and add a “Take Ownership” option to the right click menu for most folders and files. Right click and take ownership of the following files/folders:
• “Windows Media Player” folder under “Program Files”.
• All files that start with “wmp” in the folder “Windows\System32”
• The file "wmploc.dll.mui" in the folder “Windows\System32\en-US
3. Download and unzip this *file*
4. Run the .exe from the zip file. It will install WMP11, then ask you if you want to restart your computer – select no for this option.
5. Click “run” on the start menu and type “regedit”. Expand “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”, then expand “SOFTWARE”, “Microsoft”, "MediaPlayer”, and “setup”. Right click on “Installed Versions” and delete the key.
6. Now restart your system. Windows Media Player 11 will be installed and will function just as it did in Vista and XP. In case you didn’t know, to turn on the mini player toolbar, right click on your taskbar, select “toolbars”, and check “Windows Media Player”. Enjoy!
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