Installing Windows Media Player 10 on Windows Vista 32/64-bit

[Deleauvive]

Thanks for this great package. WMP10 is so much better than v11. (more advanced options, support for audio devices...)

Once installed, you get more chances to run WMP10 from Vista if you right-click a video and choose open with... instead of simply launching the player.

Oh, by the way, you need to 'take ownership' of dlls which refuse to be overwritten. There is a script somewhere that permits this operation via right-click.

Plz, keep posting tips about tweaking Vista the way WE want it to behave !

[Freak4Dell]

I can't get this to work. Half the time I get the message that a newer version is installed already, and the other half I get some random error saying setup cannot continue.

When I extract the rar file, I'm getting a whole bunch of corrupt file warnings...is this normal? Does anybody have a known good version of the rar file that I can use?

[Deleauvive]

I've noticed the following error message after a few reboots:
"The file wmp.dll version number is 11.0.6001.7000 but 10.0.3802 was expected".
Forcing me to go through the install procedure again (no workaround I know of worked).

@Freak4Dell : check your download manager, the package should be OK. I can put it on my web site, if you still have problems.

Also, make sure you don't miss any install step.

[Freak4Dell]

Okay, the package works now, but I still can't get this thing to work. At first I was getting a whole bunch of Access Denied reports in the Install.bat process, and it would ask me to overwrite a file (seemed to be a different one every time). After hitting yes a few times and realizing that it wasn't working, I went through every file and changed the permissions in order to allow it to overwrite it. I wasn't able to change 2 files. Anyway, now I run it and I get this:

An unexpected error has occurred. Setup was not able to detect any Windows Media updates. Please try again later.

I tried the trick with the inf files, and the one that won't work is wpdmtp.inf. Then I run setup_wm.exe, and run that through, but at the very end, it gives me this:

The file wmploc.dll has a version number of 10.0.0.3802 where 11.0.6001.7000 was expected.

Windows Media Player is not installed properly and must be reinstalled.

Do you want to install the Player from the Microsoft Web site?

This is driving me nuts. I'm about to just go back to XP to get my WMP back.

[Deleauvive]

I thought of something a bit radical, and really it doesn't comes with any warranty :

You could install a "N" version of Windows Vista (or use Vlite) to have your system setup free of WMP 11. Then may be, there would be less conflicting files when installing WMP 10.

That's if you really can't live without WMP10, but there are other features-packed free Media Players available, The KMPlayer being an example of such.

Again, reread the whole thread and make sure you didn't miss any step.

[Freak4Dell]

Well, I thought about that earlier, and I asked on another forum, and they said it most likely wouldn't work.

Anyway, one of my friends told me about MediaMonkey, which essentially has the interface of WMP10, so I started using that. I'll probably try the lite version of Vista at some point when I have time, but for right now, MediaMonkey works well. I just really missed the left-hand pane with all the expandable lists...they made navigation of the library so much easier.

[Deleauvive]

MediaMonkey is great for handling MusicMatch additional tags, inmho. You can use an external player with it, though.

Windows has some security mechanisms which prevent too much tampering with the system files, reloading itself from cache. Can't you just take ownership of wmploc.dll, rename it to wmploc.dll.BAK and replace it with the wmploc.dll from the archive ?

By booting on a newly created user account, I noticed wmp10.inf was missing. Here is what I did : copied wmp10.inf from the archive to Windows inf folder. right click, installed it. It asked me for the dlls and exe files location of WMP10.

Then did what I just wrote for wmp.dll.
It works, till of course Windows replaces the d*mn dll again.

Attached to this post, you will find the DRM patch in the form of a wma file.

I got as far as this

The file wmploc.dll has a version number of 10.0.0.3802 where 11.0.6001.7000 was expected.

Windows Media Player is not installed properly and must be reinstalled.

Do you want to install the Player from the Microsoft Web site?

TO SOLVE THIS

I found a workaround. Delete the following registery keys.

After deleting the registry keys below. Media Player should work.

* Remove HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\ Setup\wmp.dll
* Remove HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\ Setup\wmploc.dll
* Remove HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\ Setup\\wmplayer.exe

[Deleauvive]

Originally Posted by wollygoggles

I got as far as this :
The file wmploc.dll has a version number of 10.0.0.3802 where 11.0.6001.7000 was expected.
Windows Media Player is not installed properly and must be reinstalled.
Do you want to install the Player from the Microsoft Web site?

Happy new year !

I didn't find any such keys in HKEY_LM/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/MediaPlayer/Setup
(I use a 32-bit SP1 Windows Vista Entreprise), only :
FavoritesURLs, Install ID, InstallResult, LibraryMigrated, PlaylistsVersion, Progress_CurrentDialog, Progress_CurrentInstall, Progress_MaxDialog, Progress_MaxInstall, ResetAutoPlay.

This has to be confirmed, but, while I was presented with the same error message about wmploc.dll version, the following command worked for me :
"c:\windows\inf\unregmp2.exe /UpdateWMP"


I am preparing a repack of the WMP10 for Vista setup with a few goodies, should I contact CademiaX about it ?

[Deleauvive]

Yup ! Deleting the 3 keys worked for me (for some reason, I was not able to setup WMP10 as easily this time). Not sure about the command above (can't delete my previous posts), it seems to "repair" WMP11. How did these 3 keys appear again in my registry ?

Told CademiaX about my intentions to rework his solution (with my limited scripting knowledge), I think I'll repost it on my web site in a few days, until someone points me a more adequate place.

Please don't just stand in the shadow , report your experience with this hack ! (I am sure MS won't bother, as they are very busy with Vista 7 right now).