Microsoft Ends Metadata Support on Windows 7

By Zak Storey
published

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.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Windows Media VersionOperating SystemAffected by this change?
Windows Media CenterRow 1 - Cell 1 Row 1 - Cell 2
Row 2 - Cell 0 Windows 8.1Yes
Row 3 - Cell 0 Windows 8Yes
Row 4 - Cell 0 Windows 7Yes
Windows Media PlayerRow 5 - Cell 1 Row 5 - Cell 2
Row 6 - Cell 0 Windows 10No
Row 7 - Cell 0 Windows 8.1No
Row 8 - Cell 0 Windows 8No
Row 9 - Cell 0 Windows 7Yes

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.

Zak Storey
Zak Storey

As Associate Editor of Tom's Hardware's prestigous British division, Zak specializes in system building, case reviews and peripherals, and has a particular penchant for liquid-cooling. He's also a lover of all things Viking/Scandinavian (thus the poor attempt at a beard).

13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jimmysmitty
    With a year left for support its not surprising. In the next year we will probably also see hardware vendors stop making drivers for Windows 7 for newer products and software will also slowly stop supporting it.

    7 had a good life. Its time for it to move on.
    Reply
  • brooks2
    There are reasons why many people have not transitioned to Windows 10. Two major ones are that many people have not forgotten Windows ME and Windows Vista. They also still remember the Windows XP slow down as it bloated up from updates and the fact that Windows 8 was not exactly a big improvement over Windows 7. Windows 7 has provided stability which is certainly not I had with other versions. I've gone through MS-DOS and 8 versions of Windows, two of which (ME and Vista) were simply awful. Over the past few years, Microsoft has distributed Windows updates (both 7 and 10) which had major problems. Based on this history, it is hardly surprising that people are not switching from Windows 7 which works well to Windows 10.

    It appears to me that Microsoft is killing off the media metadata now, because it will not upset corporate IT managers who are still on Windows 7.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    21719837 said:
    There are reasons why many people have not transitioned to Windows 10. Two major ones are that many people have not forgotten Windows ME and Windows Vista. They also still remember the Windows XP slow down as it bloated up from updates and the fact that Windows 8 was not exactly a big improvement over Windows 7. Windows 7 has provided stability which is certainly not I had with other versions. I've gone through MS-DOS and 8 versions of Windows, two of which (ME and Vista) were simply awful. Over the past few years, Microsoft has distributed Windows updates (both 7 and 10) which had major problems. Based on this history, it is hardly surprising that people are not switching from Windows 7 which works well to Windows 10.

    It appears to me that Microsoft is killing off the media metadata now, because it will not upset corporate IT managers who are still on Windows 7.

    A lot of IT has moved to 10. The ones who don't are typically specialized software that has either not been written for anything newer than 7, usually because its no longer supported, or the cost would be too high.

    And Vistas biggest failing was hardware more than software. So many OEMs took XP systems with 256MB of system RAM, a single core Celeron and an old PATA HDD and pawned them off as Vista ready when at the time even XP needed 1GB minimum to run smoothly. If you built a decent gaming system at Vistas launch it ran fine. UAC was a tad aggressive (better in 7 by far) but still it was more the hardware OEMs than Vista itself.
    Reply
  • Ben Pottinger
    Windows 10 has been a solid OS for years now. Its nothing like windows ME or windows 8. Loss of support doesn't mean the end, you are welcome to keep using windows 7. It just won't have new driver support or online updates. But personally I wouldn't want to have an internet facing windows 7 system after support ends anyway. I have a couple of systems that havent seen an update in years (solaris and VMware boxes) but neither of them are internet facing either.
    Reply
  • drtweak
    Sounds like Plex will be getting more users to me! XD
    Reply
  • s1mon7
    21719860 said:
    And Vistas biggest failing was hardware more than software. So many OEMs took XP systems with 256MB of system RAM, a single core Celeron and an old PATA HDD and pawned them off as Vista ready when at the time even XP needed 1GB minimum to run smoothly. If you built a decent gaming system at Vistas launch it ran fine. UAC was a tad aggressive (better in 7 by far) but still it was more the hardware OEMs than Vista itself.

    To me that shows a software fault with Vista. The fact it couldn't even run well on a perfectly XP-capable computer means it was much more resource-hungry. While software grows and becomes more resource-demanding as features are added, I don't think anyone wants growth and bloat from the actual operating system itself. Windows 10 is bloated as well, but at least it's fairly well-optimized (all things considered) and stable. I still preferred Windows 7 and I wish there were ways to make Windows 10 lighter and less intrusive, as that could make it actually better and even lighter than 7 was.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    21720505 said:
    21719860 said:
    And Vistas biggest failing was hardware more than software. So many OEMs took XP systems with 256MB of system RAM, a single core Celeron and an old PATA HDD and pawned them off as Vista ready when at the time even XP needed 1GB minimum to run smoothly. If you built a decent gaming system at Vistas launch it ran fine. UAC was a tad aggressive (better in 7 by far) but still it was more the hardware OEMs than Vista itself.

    To me that shows a software fault with Vista. The fact it couldn't even run well on a perfectly XP-capable computer means it was much more resource-hungry. While software grows and becomes more resource-demanding as features are added, I don't think anyone wants growth and bloat from the actual operating system itself. Windows 10 is bloated as well, but at least it's fairly well-optimized (all things considered) and stable. I still preferred Windows 7 and I wish there were ways to make Windows 10 lighter and less intrusive, as that could make it actually better and even lighter than 7 was.

    You didn't read what I stated. OEMs tried to shove Vista on under powered systems that even XP would run like a dog on. By the time Vista launched XP needed 1GB of VRAM to be smooth. 512MB would work but was sluggish and would run into issues. I had plenty of "Vista Ready" systems with 256MB and 512MB of VRAM and a low end CPU come my way. Upping to 1GB made it way better, still slow thanks to the low end CPU, and 2GB made it smooth as butter.

    Yes Vista required more resources than XP but so did 7 and XP required more than 2K or 98 and 98 more than 95 and 95 more than MS-DOS. However at the time Vista came out memory was getting cheaper and cheaper. 4GB cost as mish as 512MB did when XP was the main OS so that shouldn;t have been an issue. If OEMs didn't under power their machines Vista wouldn't have had as bad of a launch and might have been looked at a bit better than it is today.
    Reply
  • njwhite
    This is bad news for users of Windows Media Center (WMC), which is not available for Windows 10. WMC is still the most full featured way to use a pc at a television viewing and recording. The others (Plex, Kodi, HDHomerun) all have serious limitations with either the program guides or unavailability of some channels due to Digital Right Management (DRM) limitations. WMC also does a superb job of making owned music and family pictures and videos available on the flat screen display.

    Microsoft's dropping of WMC on Windows 10 does not make sense to users.
    Reply
  • 0InVader0
    And nothing of value was lost. Like seriously, did anyone actually use WMC? If you want to watch tv or record whatever is going on on TV/radio, the extension card you bought to do it with probably came with software that was just as good. My brother digitalized a bunch of stuff from VHS back in the day and never used WMC.

    ... Not that I'm in any hurry to swap my win7.
    Reply
  • njwhite
    21722461 said:
    And nothing of value was lost. Like seriously, did anyone actually use WMC? If you want to watch tv or record whatever is going on on TV/radio, the extension card you bought to do it with probably came with software that was just as good. My brother digitalized a bunch of stuff from VHS back in the day and never used WMC.

    ... Not that I'm in any hurry to swap my win7.

    Reply