I really don’t like Microsoft. I was working on a website the other day, MichiganPrepRadio.com (that broadcasts local sporting events in west Michigan like high school and college football games — and I do like them) in an effort to improve the usability of their site. As a result of using that site to listen to a broadcast, Windows Media forced me to update. So I did … and then before installing it required me to phone the mother ship (not literally but via the web) to authenticate my copy of Windows XP (thankfully I am not yet forced to use the lousy new Windows Vista). It finally gave me the green light and then … it tried to change my defaults all over the place to “use Windows Media Player 11”. They were kind enough to give me a select all button so I could wreck my experience universally, but didn’t bother to give me an unselect all button so that I could affect as little as possible. Common courtesy dear Microsoft programmers says any time you add a select all, you add the opposite toggle for unselect all. That is why I dislike you: you always try to force content on me.
August 28th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I agree that the whole thing sucks. Clearly the approach is “let us overtake every media format and you’ll forget you ever had another media player.” Sounds familiar?
I much prefer Media Player Classic, which I believe to be open source. It plays every format that I’ll ever need, plus once Microsoft MP assumes all formats you can simply have Media Player Classic steal them back via the Options menu.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Yep, it also plays quicktime with a plugin, and it isn’t loaded with DRM rubbish so it runs twice as fast with half the memory.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:16 am
I can’t open my windows media player 11
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