Windows Media Player 12 Tips & Tricks for a Better User Experience

Users who use Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 will have Windows Media Player 12 bundled with the OS. In short, it’s meant to be the default media player on your device. While there are certainly better applications than WMP 12, those who don’t like the idea of downloading and installing other software just stick with what they have. There are also those who want to give WMP 12 a try. As such, this post will list down some of the interesting things you can do with it for a better user experience. Who knows? You might even change your mind and switch to this player.

Switch to the Now Playing mode

Windows Media Player 12’s Now Playing mode is dedicated solely to what you are listening to. In short, WMP will be reduced to a minimalist setting so all you’ll see are controls and information pertaining to the music or audio track currently playing.

These are what you’ll see in Now Playing mode:

• Media information
• Playback controls area
• Switch to Library button

Play more media

There was a time when WMP only played files native to its platform. But those times have long passed and you can now play different formats, be it music or video. This simply means that you don’t need to download any new media players just so you could play a particular file format. Here are some of the popular formats supported by WMP 12:

• Windows Media (WMA, WMV)
• MPEG (MPG, MPEG, MP3)
• MIDI
• WAV
• MOV
• MP4

Sync media to devices

It’s nice to carry your favorite tracks wherever you go. If this is what you want, then you might want to sync your device to WMP. This way, anything new that you add will always be available wherever you want to listen to it. Here’s how you sync your device:

• Plug your device and make sure Windows recognizes it
• Open WMP 12
• Go to Library Mode
• Click on Sync tab then choose Set up sync…
• Check Sync this device automatically in the Device Setup window
• Click Ok

Windows Media Player is the default media player for many and despite all its new features, it does run into trouble sometimes but the good thing is that there’s almost always a fix.