Microsoft has just hammered another nail into Windows 7’s coffin. On Friday the company announced, that it would be ending support for metadata across Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 (although 8 and 8.1 will still have access to it on Media Player). This apparently comes as a result of Microsoft “looking at customer feedback and usage data”, and deciding that maintaining the service was no longer cost-efficient.
Although this is a bit of a nuisance for those with expansive media libraries, it’s worth noting that this will not have any effect on media that you already have the metadata downloaded for. However going forward, seeing information such as title, genre, artist, director, etc will be gone, unless you opt for a third-party service instead.
Fortunately, Microsoft is still continuing to support media player playback, meaning if you are still clinging on for dear life to the ad and Candy Crush free OS, you won’t be entirely out of luck just yet.
Windows Media Version | Operating System | Affected by this change? |
Windows Media Center | Row 1 - Cell 1 | Row 1 - Cell 2 |
Row 2 - Cell 0 | Windows 8.1 | Yes |
Row 3 - Cell 0 | Windows 8 | Yes |
Row 4 - Cell 0 | Windows 7 | Yes |
Windows Media Player | Row 5 - Cell 1 | Row 5 - Cell 2 |
Row 6 - Cell 0 | Windows 10 | No |
Row 7 - Cell 0 | Windows 8.1 | No |
Row 8 - Cell 0 | Windows 8 | No |
Row 9 - Cell 0 | Windows 7 | Yes |
Why this feature is disabled in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, yet still available on Windows 10 is clearly a bit of a mystery, or maybe not. Read Microsoft's official statement about it here. Or alternatively we recommend you try out a free media player alternative such as VLC player, or Media Player Classic.