Windows Media Player (2022)

This article is about the media player featured in Windows 10 and 11. For the media player featured prior to Windows 11, see Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Player (or simply Media Player) is a video and audio player developed by Microsoft for Windows 11 and subsequently backported to Windows 10. It is the successor to Groove Music (previously Xbox Music), Microsoft Movies & TV, and the original Windows Media Player. It began rolling out to Windows 11 Insider channels in November 2021 and then to all users starting in January 2022.^[2][3] It was later released to Windows 10 users in January 2023.^[4]

Windows Media Player

Media Player running on Windows 11 in Light mode
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	November 2021; 3 years ago (2021-11)
Stable release	11.2410.8.0 (4 December 2024; 15 days ago (2024-12-04)[1]) [±]
Operating system	Windows 10, Windows 11
Predecessor	Groove Music Microsoft Movies & TV Windows Media Player

Features

The new version of Windows Media Player (or Media Player) now includes support for video files, as part of Groove Music's rebranding from a music streaming service to a media player.^[5] Other changes to the app include the album cover view being in fullscreen, and a refresh to the mini player.^[6] Accessibility has also been optimized in this new version, with some improved keyboard shortcuts and hotkey support for keyboard users and with other assistive technologies.^[7]

Some features from the original Windows Media Player were initially not included, such as DLNA local streaming and the ripping of CDs. Ripping was eventually reintroduced in July 2022 for Windows 11, supporting the AAC, WMA, FLAC, and ALAC formats.^[8]

Supported formats

This is a list of known supported formats in Media Player on Windows 10 and Windows 11.^[9][10][11]

List of supported audio formats

File Container	File Extension	Number of channels
MPEG-1 Audio Layer III MPEG-2 Audio Layer III	.mp3	2
Free Lossless Audio Codec	.flac	2
Raw AAC stream Audio Data Interchange Format (ADIF) Audio Data Transport Stream (ADTS)	.aac, .adt, .adts	2
MPEG-4 audio-only file (AAC)	.m4a	5.1
Waveform Audio File Format	.wav	2
Windows Media Audio	.wma	5.1
Dolby AC-3	.ac3	5.1
3GP and 3G2	.3gp, .3g2	2
Adaptive Multi-Rate	.amr	2
Matroska audio-only file	.mka	2
Ogg audio-only file (may contain various Xiph formats such as: Ogg FLAC, OggPCM, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Opus)[12]	.oga	2
Ogg container (Vorbis)	.ogg	2
Ogg container (Opus)	.opus	2

List of supported video formats

File Container	File Extension	Notes
MPEG-4 video Apple MPEG-4 video (MPEG-4 Part 2, H.264, H.265, AV1)	.mp4, .m4v	Dolby Vision, H.265 and AV1 playback requires installation of add-on from Microsoft Store. DTS Audio playback requires DTS Sound Unbound from Microsoft Store with DTS:X Decoder license.
QuickTime File Format	.mov
Advanced Systems Format	.asf
Audio Video Interleave	.avi
Windows Media Video	.wmv
BDAV MPEG-2 Transport Stream	.m2ts
3GP and 3G2	.3g2, .3gp2, .3gpp
Matroska video	.mkv
WebM (VP8, VP9, AV1)	.webm	AV1 playback requires installation of add-on from Microsoft Store.
Ogg container (Theora)	.ogv

List of supported streaming protocols

Streaming Protocol	URL Identifier
Shoutcast / Icecast (ICY)	—
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)[13]	.m3u8

See also

• Groove Music – UWP-based music player; predecessor of Media Player for Windows 10 and Windows 11
• Microsoft Movies & TV – UWP-based video player and online store
• Windows Media Player – Win32-based "classic" media player app

References

1. "Windows Media Player". Microsoft Apps. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
2. Baxter, Daryl (September 29, 2021). "Microsoft accidentally shows off a new Media Player for Windows 11". TechRadar. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
3. Baxter, Daryl (January 5, 2022). "New and improved Windows Media Player is rolling out to Windows 11 users". TechRadar. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
4. Baxter, Daryl (January 13, 2023). "The beat stops for Groove Music in Windows 10 as it's replaced by Media Player". TechRadar. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
5. Holt, Kris (November 17, 2021). "Microsoft is replacing Windows Media Player with Media Player for Windows 11". Engadget. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
6. "Full screen album art". 16 November 2021.
7. "Optimized accessibility". 16 November 2021.
8. Parmar, Mayank (2022-07-14). "Windows 11 now lets you easily rip CD with new Media Player". Windows Latest. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
9. Windows 11's New Media Player Brings Big Improvements to Audio and Video - PCMag
10. "Supported audio and video formats (Windows Runtime apps) - Windows app development". Microsoft Docs.
11. "Supported codecs - UWP applications". Microsoft Docs.
12. "MIME Types and File Extensions - XiphWiki".
13. "HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) tag support - UWP applications".