History of Windows Media Player
Jul 31st, 2007 by Vladimir Flemming
Windows Media Player (WMP) is a digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices. Editions of Windows Media Player were also released for Mac OS, Mac OS X and Solaris, but have since been discontinued.
The default file formats are Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Advanced Systems Format (ASF), and supports its own XML based playlist format called Windows Playlist (WPL). The Zune software which actually is a modified version of Windows Media Player, additionally supports AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) audio, and MPEG-4 and H.264 video formats out-of-the-box.
Windows has had a media player since version 3.0 with MultiMedia Extensions. The original Media Player application used MCI to handle media files. In 1996 Microsoft released ActiveMovie, a new way of dealing with media files and streaming media (which the original Media Player couldn’t handle).
Windows Media Player 11 is the most recent version of the player, which is available for Windows XP as well as Windows Vista. This new version features many changes.
Microsoft released the first public beta of Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP (excluding Media Center editions before 2005) on May 17, 2006 and subsequently released the second public beta on August 31, 2006. Then on October 30, 2006, the final version of Windows Media Player was released to the public. Windows Media Player 11 was included in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Vista operating system when it was released in November 30, 2006 (for volume-licenses) and January 30, 2007 (for worldwide retail availability); the Vista version includes some features not found in the XP version. As a result of a European antitrust ruling, Microsoft will also be required to produce “Windows Vista N” editions which do not include Windows Media Player for the European Union market.
Source: Wikipedia.org