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Windows Media Player 11 Interview

I just put online my first interview here at The Insider. I ask a few questions I've seen asked here in the community in regards to Windows Meda Player 11 to Geoff Harris who is the Product Unit Manager for WMP 11.
microsoft - comments - 6.5.2006

Windows Media Player 11 Released

As promised and revealed by Neowin, Microsoft has released Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP.
download - comments - 30.10.2006

Windows Media Player 11 for XP download

I have some information about release dates on WMP 11 for XP that no one else has. This info was obtained from a Microsoft employee who I can't name but was able to give me this info.

UPDATED: Windows Media Player 11 for XP
download - comments - 10.5.2006

Windows Media Player 11 Beta Official download

Finally, Today it seems that Microsoft have released the highly anticipated Windows Media Player 11 public beta! Along with this release, Microsoft have launched WMP11's new website, which explains some of WMP11's major features.
download - comments - 17.5.2006

Windows Media Player 11 will RTM on September 14th

Exclusive news from keznews.net: Windows Media Player 11 for XP will RTM on September 14th, 2006.
microsoft - comments - 6.8.2006

Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 released to the public!

Today Microsoft has released Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 to the public. It can be downloaded at http://www.microsoft.com/... 11/default.aspx. The new build number is 11.0.5705.5043.
download - comments - 31.8.2006

Windows Media Player 11 release pushed to Tuesday Oct 30th

Windows Media Player 11, originally scheduled to be released in a final version to the public today, was pushed back to Tuesday Oct. 30th.
microsoft - comments - 25.10.2006

Disable and Remove URGE Online Store in Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11)

Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) for Windows XP is the latest Windows Media Player (WMP) for Windows Vista, and available as free standalone program downloadable from Micrsoft for genuine Windows XP SP2 users. WMP 11 features Windows Vista-like feel and touch user interface, plus several other improvements and enhancements.
windows - comments - 20.11.2006

Windows Vista Build 5231 and Windows Media Player 11 Leaks!

Windows Vista Build 5231 has leaked to the web. The new build is said to include Windows Media Player 11 included. View the screenshots below! This is a Main branch build that was released on September 12th, 2005 at 8:20PM.
windows - comments -

Windows XP get Windows Media Player 11 in June

Microsoft plans to jazz up its music player in Windows Vista, the company's next operating system. But at least some of the new features will debut much sooner.

The software, which will be built into Vista, is designed to offer better synching with portable devices, make it easier to scroll through long libraries of music, and be tightly integrated with Urge, a new subscription and download music service co-developed by Microsoft and MTV Networks.
windows - comments - 18.4.2006

Fix Windows 7 Update Stopped Working with Fix WU

Often due to missing dlls or other files windows functionality like firewall, automatic updates etc stops working.
download - comments - 10.11.2009

About WGA, WGA Notifiction and WGA Patcher

Thanks to Matt for this article in our forum. Current WGA version- 1.5.723.1 As Of 12/18/06. Current WGA Patcher version-WGA Patcher Permanent Kit v1.0!
windows - comments - 19.2.2007

Fix for a Fix that fixes Windows Update fixes

Consider the following scenario. You apply the hotfix package that is described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 916089.
microsoft - comments - 21.2.2007

No Windows Mobile 6.5 on May 11

Over the weekend, several blogs reported that Windows Mobile 6.5 would release on May 11. That's simply not true.
windows - comments - 22.4.2009

Windows 7 Direct3D 11 Features

As of November 2008, Microsoft is delivering the first taste of DirectX 11 for Windows 7 for download. A release aimed at developers, The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit, brings to the table the successor of Direct3D 10.1, namely Direct3D 11.
windows - comments - 27.11.2008

Windows Mobile 6.5 launching on May 11

Back in February, Neowin cited Mary-Jo Foley predicting the Windows Mobile 6.5 roadmap. The Windows Mobile Team has announced the Windows Mobile 6.5 official launch date in a blog post as May 11, 2009.
windows - comments - 18.4.2009

DirectX 11 for Windows Vista SP2 Available

Microsoft is beginning to backport Windows 7 features to Windows Vista, and as an integral part of the process, the company is also upgrading Vistas graphics technology to the level of Windows 7.
microsoft - comments - 12.9.2009

The Windows 7 11-Second Boot and the Computer That Made It Possible

Windows 7s evolution compared to Windows Vista is undeniable, and the lucky few that so far have had access to the RTM bits of the latest Windows client can confirm this.
windows - comments - 18.9.2009

MagicTweak 4.11

MagicTweak is a special program designed to optimize and personalize Microsoft Windows. It provides one-stop, instant access to a variety of Windows settings that can be altered for a friendlier Windows environment.
download - comments - 31.10.2007

Trillian 3.1.11.0

Trillian is a multi-network chat client that currently supports IRC, AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger.
download - comments - 4.10.2008

Fedora 11 now available

Fedora 11, the next release of the popular Linux distribution, is now available from the Fedora website.
common - comments - 9.6.2009

Will Windows Mobile 7 fix updating?

According to a recent job posting, Microsoft might be changing how updates work on Windows Mobile with the release of version 7 next year.
windows - comments - 16.3.2009

Joke? - It's the End for 3.11

For those that were not aware, we recently announced that effective November 1st, 2008, OEM's will no longer be able to license Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in the embedded channel.
windows - comments - 10.7.2008

11 years ago Microsoft launched Windows 95 with "Start Me Up" campaign

11 years ago Microsoft launched Windows 95 with "Start Me Up" campaign, read how Microsoft negotiated with the Stones for the song.
windows - comments - 25.8.2006

No Surprise in XP Outperforming Vista, the Same Is Valid for Windows 2000, 95 and 3.11

With the advent of Windows Vista in 2007, the latest Windows client, and the product that could have done with a tad more refinement according to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, a barrage of criticism started orbiting the operating system.
windows - comments - 3.4.2008

No fix for 'critical' hole in Windows 98, ME

Microsoft will not fix a serious flaw in Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition because a patch could break other applications.
windows - comments - 11.6.2006

Latest Windows 7 Updates Cause BSOD: Fix

TechARP had been providing giving updates on the Windows 7 Downgrade Rights Program. Now Microsoft has confirmed the same in a blog post, regarding the Windows 7 Downgrade rights program.
windows - comments - 16.4.2009

1st fix for Windows 7 RC 32bit

A folder that is created under the root of the system drive is missing entries in its security descriptor, which may cause some application failures on the English version of Windows 7 Release Candidate 32-bit Ultimate
windows - comments - 11.5.2009

Diskeeper 11 Build 709t

Diskeeper is a disk defragmenter for Microsoft Windows. Diskeeper 2007 represents a quantum leap in system performance, enabling you to run your computer at the height of its potential, 100% of the time, and for the life of your systems.
download - comments - 27.5.2007

Process Explorer 11.02

Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
download - comments - 15.9.2007

Microsoft Pledge: No More WGA Funny Business

Microsoft has been painstakingly reviewing the operations and procedures behind its Windows Genuine Advantage license validation tool, with a view to ironing out glitches that have cause problems for legitimate Windows users. Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is designed to combat piracy by installing software on users' PC that periodically checks to see if their version of Windows is authentic before allowing them to download updates.

In a Tuesday Weblog entry, Alex Kochis, senior product manager in the Windows Genuine Advantage group, said the WGA team has been studying its WGA operations and processes and will handle future WGA issues more efficiently than it has in the past. WGA has been a source of much frustration for users since it was launched in 2005, and recent incidents have fanned the flames of WGA loathing among Microsoft's customers and partners.

The WGA team has changed the way it rolls out updates to the back-end servers and has also been shoring up the infrastructure on which WGA is based. In addition to revamping its monitoring of WGA servers, Microsoft is also implementing 24x7 customer support and phone based technical support to its North American customers, Kochis wrote.


neowin.net - 22.11.2007

Addressing WGA validation issues

From what I personally noticed while reading about the WGA issue around the web, it was much more than just a "very few customers were affected". Perhaps Microsoft should rethink their validation strategy after this near-disaster?



Earlier today (25 August) we began receiving reports of Windows Vista customers running genuine systems but experiencing failures when attempting a Windows Genuine Advantage validation. This situation has since been resolved and validations are now being processed successfully.



We've since learned that very few customers were affected. Sr. Product Manager Alex Kochis and a team of engineers have been working on the issue and has blogged about it to keep customers up-to-date. Customers who received an incorrect validation response can fix their system by revalidating. I'd encourage anyone who received a validation failure since Friday evening to visit this site now; after successfully revalidating, any affected system should be rebooted to ensure that genuine-only features are restored.



Alex will be updating his blog with information as more information comes to light.




winbeta.org - 26.08.2007

Community Article: The Windows Media Player 11 experience

Columnist Joli Ballew previews Windows Media Player 11 in Windows Vista, revealing an improved media library, redesigned interface, helpful shortcut menus, and a fast search tool for which you might just go crazy...
microsoft.com/windowsvista - 25.05.2006

Windows Genuine Advantage: Learning and Improving

WGA Team: While some time has passed since the WGA temporary service outage we had back in August, I wanted to share some more about what we've learned since then and the steps we've been taking to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.



First off, we've been taking another hard look at our operations and the tools and processes we use to run the validation service for WGA, and we've made some changes including to how we roll out updates to the back-end servers (it was a specific upgrade to our system that analyzes product keys that caused the issue in August) and we've been adding to and improving the tools used to make sure our infrastructure is solid. As part of that, we've revamped the monitoring that is used to track what's happening within our server infrastructure so that we can identify potential problems faster - ideally before any customer gets impacted. But also as part of that, we've been making changes in how we can help our customers when an issue does arise that impacts them.




winbeta.org - 22.11.2007

Microsoft Adds Firefox Support to WGA

Firefox users may still be out of the luck when it comes to Windows Update, but they can now download files from Microsoft that require Windows Genuine Advantage validation thanks to a new plug-in. WGA checks to make sure the Windows license is legit and is now a requirement on the Microsoft Download Center...
betanews.com - 17.11.2005

Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 Out

Microsoft on Thursday released a second beta of Windows Media Player 11, providing some performance enhancements, bug fixes and the integration of Windows Media Connect functionality into the player itself...
betanews.com - 01.09.2006

Microsoft: We can Fix that for you

Microsoft Windows operating systems like Windows XP and Windows Vista provide troubleshooting options for errors that occur in your PC and sometimes provide a link which can have a solution for that error. But finding a proper fix has always been a difficult task for many. Sometimes we may think why can't Microsoft fix this for me? The Fix-it teams' purpose is to help users fix their problems in a click of a button. The Microsoft KB articles and the Windows Error Reporting are now fix-it enabled with a list of steps that can be followed to resolve the issue.

Read full story.....
neowin.net - 03.01.2009

Windows Media Player 11 Update for Windows XP

There is an updated version of Windows Media Player 11 available for download. Thanks to slimy for the heads up.

Windows Media Player 11 offers great new ways to store and enjoy all of your digital media. It's easier than ever to access all of your music, video, pictures, and recorded TV on your computer. Play it, view it, organize it, and sync it to a portable device for enjoying on the go, or share with devices around your home - all from one place. Windows Media Player 11 is designed to work with all versions of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, including Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.


neowin.net - 11.11.2006

Windows Media Player 11 Delayed

Microsoft has temporarily put its release of Windows Media Player 11 on hold, citing quality concerns. According to several Windows enthusiast sites such as Neowin, the company pushed back its target date from Tuesday to October 30...
betanews.com - 26.10.2006

Microsoft Responds to WGA Concerns

Microsoft late Friday publicly responded to widespread reports that a recent change to its Windows Genuine Advantage program caused the software to contact Microsoft servers on a daily basis. The company says it will soon release an update to make WGA only call home every 14 days...
betanews.com - 10.06.2006

XP Pro to receive WGA similar to Vista SP1

Remember how everyone was excited about how Vista SP1 received a WGA update to not block you from your computer?

Well, the same is coming to Windows XP. (Professional only, though. Who would want to pirate XP Home?)

From the WGA Blog:

With this update to WGA Notifications in Windows XP, we've implemented a couple of related features that draw on the notifications experience we designed for Windows Vista SP1. After installing this version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously (see below).

The desktop background can be reset to anything else in the usual ways, but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine.

Also, the user will see the addition of what we call the "persistent desktop notification." This notification is similar to a watermark but works a bit differently. The image (see below) appears over the system tray and is non-interactive in the sense that you can't click on it or do anything to it.

As with previous releases, if a copy of Windows fails validation, notifications will appear above the system tray regularly - and we will continue to have the pre-logon message, the logon interrupt message and the messages that appear from the system tray.



jcxp.net - 27.08.2008

Microsoft finally earns a passing grade (barely) for WGA

Microsoft launched its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy program in early summer 2006. Its first year was, to put it charitably, a disaster. An epic fail. A big fat F on the years report card.



A certain amount of error is inevitable in any activation and registration system, but those numbers were clearly too high when WGA first rolled out. In an interview last week, Microsoft WGA director Alex Kochis tacitly acknowledged that fact, pointing out that weve made major strides in the accuracy of the program in the past two years.




winbeta.org - 05.09.2008

Seven ways to fix WGA

Microsoft's Alex Kochis has blogged an explanation of the glitch behind last weekend's Windows Genuine Advantage screwup that left users being told their copies of Windows were pirated, and Vista users having features like Aero and ReadyBoost disabled. In short, buggy preproduction code accidentally got rolled out to the production servers that verify whether a copy of Windows is legit or not. Oops!



Kochis's post is pretty detailed, humble, and up-front. But I hope it's only the start of Microsoft's response to the weekend mess. If a copy protection scheme can leave thousands of paying customers with their copies of Windows disabling functionality and accusing them of using pirated copies of the OS, it's simply too fragile to trust. Even if this particular problem never crops up again. (And this recent unpleasantness is far from the first time that WGA has caused trouble.)




winbeta.org - 30.08.2007

Microsoft WGA phones home?

Analysts over at the German web site Heise Online have uncovered a curious behavior with the latest Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) update. The update is intended to patch the latest hole that hackers have used to work around the WGA utility, which checks to see if the users' copy of Windows is genuine or pirated. According to tests conducted with an Ethernet sniffer program, if the user clicks the close button to cancel the installation of this WGA update, Windows sends some information back to Microsoft over the wires.



This information includes version numbers of both Windows and WGA, the language of the operating system, some registry information, and a cookie. Some hackers are worried that Microsoft is going to use this information to identify potential pirates, but Microsoft claims that the data is only used to try and diagnose failures with the WGA utility itself. The outgoing data can be blocked, if desired, by personal firewall software or hardware router.




jcxp.net - 13.03.2007

Microsoft Denies Kill Switch

Earlier this week there were reports flying about that Microsoft was actually using the WGA as a means to shut off pirates or anyone who doesn?t comply with the update. The people at Redmond now have made a statement to dispel those rumors.

Microsoft Corp. today denied speculation that it plans to cripple copies of Windows XP for users who refuse to install its controversial antipiracy tool, Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA).

All the WGA has netted Microsoft at this point is bad press and even a lawsuit or two.


jcxp.net - 02.07.2006

Microsoft Delivers Seven Security Bulletins

Microsoft released seven patches on Tuesday to fix 11 different vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and other software applications.

In its last regularly scheduled patch day for 2006, the software giant issued a critical cumulative update for Internet Explorer fixing four vulnerabilities, patches for serious flaws in its Outlook Express e-mail client and Visual Studio development environment, and four other patches to fix five Windows flaws, including two critical vulnerabilities in the handling of the Windows Media format.

The addition of the fix for the Windows Media format was originally unscheduled.

"We have been working on an update for the Windows Media Format and were able to meet the quality bar necessary for release," Microsoft said in a statement. "Because of this, we were able to add it to the December release."

The software giant did not fix a worrisome flaw in Microsoft Word and Works, which attackers are already exploiting to compromise systems.


jcxp.net - 13.12.2006

New Version Of WGA Soon.

A source close to Microsoft told german Windows enthusiast site WinFuture about plans to introduce a new version of the windows genuine check. According to the source the activation of Windows XP is going to be required to get access to ALL downloads listed in Microsofts Download Center. Additionally a message will pop up every time the system boots, if Windows has not been activated yet. The message will remind the user of activating Windows and start the validation process via WGA.


Source: WinFuture.de (German)..
jcxp.net - 20.04.2006

Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 Released

As anticipated, Microsoft have just released Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 for XP. Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 for Windows XP offers you unmatched choice and flexibility for your digital media. You can easily manage your libraries of digital music, photos, and video on your computer; explore a new world of music through the integrated URGE music service; and connect with mobile devices so you can have your digital media collection wherever you want it.

Windows Media Player 11 is designed to work with all versions of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, including Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N. Beta 2 includes fixed issues from Beta 1, additional online stores, and changes to sharing digital media content. To learn more about these changes, use the link below.


jcxp.net - 03.09.2006

PINNED: Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 Released

As anticipated, Microsoft have just released Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 for XP. Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 for Windows XP offers you unmatched choice and flexibility for your digital media. You can easily manage your libraries of digital music, photos, and video on your computer; explore a new world of music through the integrated URGE music service; and connect with mobile devices so you can have your digital media collection wherever you want it.

Windows Media Player 11 is designed to work with all versions of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, including Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N. Beta 2 includes fixed issues from Beta 1, additional online stores, and changes to sharing digital media content. To learn more about these changes, use the link below.


jcxp.net - 01.09.2006

Microsoft removes another one of WGA's fangs

This morning Microsoft announced another noteworthy change to its flagship Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program - an update to be rolled out later this month to all Vista users that will display a WGA warning dialog box when it detects either of two common Vista activation cracks. In the same announcement, they also for the first time showed screen shots of how WGA changes debuting in SP1 will take some of the bite out of a longstanding Windows product activation rule as well.

Now-departed Microsoft marketing chief Michael Sievert announced last December that Service Pack 1 would drop Vista’s “reduced functionality mode” (the notorious “kill switch”) in favor of a series of notifications and nag screens. WGA senior product manager Alex Kochis posted the details of today’s changes, with screen shots, on Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage blog today.


Read full story.....
neowin.net - 22.02.2008