Windows Media Player’s ‘find album information’ functionality has been removed — you’ll have to find other software for playing and ripping CDs with relevant track information

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Even the new Media Player app in Windows 11 has the same issue as the Legacy version, with audio CDs.

Windows Media player loses features
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Microsoft has quietly removed ‘find album information’ and ‘update album info online’ tools from the Media Player apps supplied with Windows 11. We checked both Windows Media Player Legacy, and the latest Media Player app, and neither could connect to retrieve album artwork, track names, and other useful data like genre/composer, when an audio CD was popped in to play. Several music CDs were tried.

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Windows Media player loses features
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

It might be understandable that Microsoft let this feature wither away from Windows Media Player Legacy – as it is a legacy tool. The removal of this feature in the Legacy app was confirmed by The Register earlier this week. Microsoft PR didn’t respond to that site’s queries about whether the service has been retired intentionally.

When we tested the Legacy app with a few audio CDs, we observed that musicmatch-ssl.xboxlive.com wasn’t reachable by the ‘Find Album Information’ service that is built-in.

Our efforts shifted to the new Media Player app that is the default tool for consuming video and audio, as well as handling playlists, on the latest Windows 11 packing PCs. Sadly, this app suffered from a very similar issue. The error message when I tried to update album info online read, “We couldn’t connect to the service. Check your internet connection, then try again.” There was no issue with my internet connection.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Alternative CD audio media players and rippers are available, but it is a shame those built-into the latest Windows OS distributions have been neutered in this way.

Not many computers ship with optical drives nowadays. We have reported on just a handful of PC releases in 2025 which involved optical drive hardware, ready to handle media like Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs.

Some movie, music, and computer enthusiasts are still very fond of their optical media. Even though we are firmly in the ‘age of streaming,’ movie and music aficionados still prefer physical media due to the quality they offer, and the shifting-sands upon which streaming providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime Movies, Spotify, and others, build their offerings.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jame5
    Migrated to Foobar2000 (Yes, the Winamp competitor) for my media player/CD Ripping solution on Win11.


    My only serious complaint is that it seems to encode the ID3 tags weirdly. Means the apostrophe (') come out as a string of characters rather than a plain apostrophe.
    Reply
  • Dr3ams
    I've been using JetAudio for years. JetAudio use to be an all-in-one media player that also played video, but the devs split the two and tried to sell them seperately. That didn't go so well. JetAudio and JetVideo are now completely free.

    The Windows Media Player has never been as good as third party apps. I don't know why Microsoft keeps it around.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    When they rename it to CoPilot Media Player app (like they've done for Office) it will regain this functionality through AI.

    Maybe.
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    i use exact audio copy for cd to digital, and media player classic, which is part of K Lite codec pack for my audio listening... and MPC for video as well... havent used the built in windows media player for ages now....
    Reply