The Microsoft Windows Media Player, also known as WMP and Wmplayer is Microsoft’s fully functional media player that is included for free with any copy of Windows. It allows users to view photos, play music from a CD or music file, and watch video media. Additionally, Windows Media Player allows users to rip audio CDs and organize their music collections. It should be noted, however, that Windows Media Player will not play DVDs due to Copyright restrictions.

Supported file formats

The Windows Media Player can play almost every computer media (sound and video) file format. Audio formats examples include MP3, WMV, WMA, CDA, WAV, and other formats. For video, AVI and MPEG-4 are supported, with other file formats also supported. Other video formats are supported as long as the associated video codecs are installed. Microsoft also released a mobile version, called Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. It supported MP3, ASF, WMA and WMV media formats.

  • Supported file formats.
  • Windows Media Player history.
  • How do I open Windows Media Player?
  • How do I play a music CD in Windows Media Player?
  • Related information.

Windows Media Player history

The first version of the Windows Media Player came about in 1991; it was intended to be used with Windows 3.0. At that time, it was called Media Player. It has been included with every version of Windows since Windows 98 SE. The current release, bundled with Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10, is version 12. Since the release of version 7, support for burning and ripping audio CDs has been included as well.

How do I open Windows Media Player?

From Windows

Press the Windows key, type WMP, and then press Enter.

From MS-DOS and the Windows command line

If you enter something similar to the example text below into the command line, Windows Media Player open and start playing a song. This command can also be placed in a batch file to start a media file.

start wmplayer “i:\mp3\example.mp3”

How do I play a music CD in Windows Media Player?

To play a music CD in Windows Media Player, follow the steps below.

When entering the path to the MP3 or other media file, make sure to specify the complete path.

  • Open Windows Media Player.
  • Open the CD drive in the computer and place the music CD in the disc tray, then close the disc tray.
  • If the CD does not start to play automatically, look for the music CD in the left navigation pane of Windows Media Player. The music CD should be listed by the album title.
  • Click the music CD, then select the music track you want to play.
  • Click the play button to start playing the music CD.

Media Player, Playback, Software terms

  • How to rip an audio CD with Windows Media Player.
  • How to make Windows Media Player rip CDs automatically.
  • How to change rip format and quality in Windows Media Player.
  • How to determine the version of Windows Media Player.
  • How to uninstall or reinstall Windows Media Player.
  • Programs used to rip or copy audio CDs to a computer.
  • Windows Media Player cannot rip one or more tracks from the CD.
  • Windows Media Player help and support.