List of Features Removed in Windows Vista - Windows Media Player Features

Windows Media Player Features

• The List Pane no longer allows deleting or editing items by right clicking items.
• Categories in the player library such as Music, Pictures, Videos, Recorded TV show limited media information (metadata) columns, relevant only to their content type. In previous versions, all possible metadata columns were shown for all category types.
• Buttons to always show full-screen controls, show or hide the playlist while in full-screen mode and directly close Windows Media Player from full-screen have been removed.
• Auto sorting in the media library (similar to auto sorting in Windows Explorer) cannot be turned off.
• Grouping cannot be turned off. Library content is always grouped by the criteria by which it is sorted.
• The ability to add media to the library for searching local or network files and selectively adding only new files or existing files has been removed. Media can only be added from monitored folders.
• The seek slider cannot be always shown when playing media. The mouse must be hovered over the progress bar above the playback controls to reveal the seek slider.
• The sort order is not preserved in the library like Windows Media Player 10 as long as the player is open.
• The file list of selected files has been removed from the Advanced Tag Editor.
• Next and Previous buttons to cycle through visualizations have been removed.
• Most Auto Playlists included by default in Windows Media Player 10 have been removed.
• Library options to configure what action to take when double clicking files (Add to List, Play All, Play Selected Items) have been removed.
• The total playlist time is no longer shown in the Now Playing list or in the Library without selecting items. It is only shown in the Library for selected items.
• Total number of tracks is also only shown after selecting all tracks. The total size in MB is not shown in any view.
• The expandable tree view was removed from the navigation pane/left side of the media library.
• The Quick Access Panel, located next to the "Now Playing" tab in Windows Media Player 10 which enabled browsing the library via a pop-up/dropdown menu, has been removed. As an example of this, the library cannot be browsed through a menu and without having to switch to library view.
• It is not possible to change the media player's background to black. Instead, the background is a near-white shade of the color chosen in the color chooser.
• In previous versions of Windows Media Player, the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + I" could be used to capture the frame of video being displayed at the time the shortcut was initiated. This feature was removed for Windows Media Player 11.
• The License Management tool available in prior versions of Windows Media Player has been removed since version 11. It is not possible to back up and restore licenses. This prevents users of music download services from directly using Windows Media Player to back up their licenses and restore them to another computer. The user now must depend on the download service being able to assist with re-acquiring that license. Not all services support this so in some circumstances the user could lose the ability to play media which they've purchased for use with Windows Media Player 11. e.g. Walmart states: "Important Note: In many cases, we cannot replace song and license files if they are lost. We strongly suggest you back up your music by creating an audio CD or CDs using Windows Media Player 11"
• Windows Media Player 10, which is downloadable for Windows XP and part of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 includes the Fraunhofer MP3 ACM codec for ripping to MP3 format. Because of licensing restrictions, Windows Media Player 11 includes only an MP3 decoder, not an ACM encoder.
• The HighMAT burning capability integrated into Windows Media Player 10 is not available in Windows Media Player 11.
• Display Anchor window when in skin mode option has been removed.
• Enable picture support for devices option has been removed.
• The Ambience, Particle, Plenoptic, Spikes, and Musical colors visualizations have been removed.
• The options to use the legacy renderer, overlay mixer, video mixing renderer (VMR-7) or high quality mode (VMR-9) are not available in the Windows Vista version of Windows Media Player 11. The Windows Vista version can use only the Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR).
• Support for live scrubbing or live seeking, that is, the ability to show the video frame after seeking with the mouse or after clicking with the mouse while paused is not available in the version of Windows Media Player 11 in Windows Vista and later but is supported in Windows Media Player 11 on Windows XP.
• The configuration tab to associate with media file types has also been removed from Windows Media Player 11 options in Windows Vista.
• On Windows Vista the ability to remove or reinstall Windows Media Player 11 is not present, as it is integrated with the operating system.
• Windows Media Player 6.4 (mplayer2.exe) has been removed like it was removed in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The MCI version of Media Player (mplay32.exe) has also been removed.