Microsoft Windows Media Player Stops Serving Up CD Album Info (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0180554666
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/1742218/microsoft-windows-media-player-stops-serving-up-cd-album-info
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/microsoft_windows_media_player_forgets/
> Microsoft is celebrating the resurgence of interest in physical media in the only way it knows how... by halting the Windows Media Player metadata service. Readers of a certain vintage will remember inserting a CD into their PC and watching Windows Media Player populate with track listings and album artwork. No more.
>
> Sometime before Christmas, the metadata servers stopped working and on Windows 10 or 11, the result is the same: album not found. We tried this out at Vulture Central on some sacrificial Windows devices that had media drives and can confirm that a variety of compact discs were met with stony indifference. Some 90s cheese that was successfully ripped (for personal use, of course) decades ago? No longer recognized. A reissue of something achingly hip? Also not recognized.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/microsoft_windows_media_player_forgets/
Data in The Cloud ... (Score:2)
... is not archival. Expect that it may disappear at any time.
> Some 90s cheese that was successfully ripped
I'm not sure how WMP works. Tracks ripped, but it still has to go to the server for track listing and art? I've ripped a bunch of stuff for my iPod Nano. Art, listings and all. The thing merrily chugs along because it has no concept of remote storage.
Re:Data in The Cloud ... (Score:4, Informative)
> I'm not sure how WMP works. Tracks ripped, but it still has to go to the server for track listing and art?
None of that data is on the CD. All players have to get it from somewhere else. There's some additional info which can be put on the disc in a standard format called [1]CD-TEXT [web.ncf.ca], but most CDs don't have it (or didn't last I looked anyway.) There's also enhanced CDs which are really just multisession and have a data track, but they don't have standard formats. WIMP and other players use the lengths of the tracks as a signature to identify an album.
[1] https://web.ncf.ca/aa571/cdtext.htm
Re: (Score:2)
> CDs don't generally have that info encoded
Correct. You've got to make a point of fetching it. Although the average person probably thinks, "Album art! Wow! Magic!" And that's the end of it. My ripper gives you the option to fetch it. From any one of a number of sources.
> Not sure why WMP wouldn't write the tags when ripping.
The tags are probably there. Someplace. Else how would the album info have been fetched a few months ago. What appears to be dead is the cloudy metadata. So the question is: Did WMP offer a download metadata option?
Did Microsoft make the (incorrect) assumption that cloud == immutabl
Re: (Score:2)
I think WIMP grabbed the info by default. It would also take a pile of tracks in a directory and ID them . If you had nothing but the track numbers right, and they didn't even have to be in tags (just the filenames) then it would successfully ID albums. Before I found other tools which would do this, I found this very useful.
why did they do that? (Score:2)
not that many use CDs much anymore, but this seems anti-consumer. how much did this feature cost to provide? are they broke? do they need Corporate Welfare?
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on how deeply you drink the conspiracy-theory Kool-Aid, this is the preparation for Microsoft releasing a CD album and track subscription service that's an add-on to the new Windows Copilot Media Player, which will, with no way to disable the feature, automatically suggest other albums you might like based on the CD you have in the player (the Copilot-driven suggestions will be part of the base app, not the add-on; the base app needs to upload your CD usage to Microsoft for them to monetize your m
Re: (Score:2)
> how much did this feature cost to provide? are they broke?
The Duality of Slashdot:
a) Windows is bloated, it does all these things no one needs or uses!
b) I can't believe Microsoft just got rid of that thing no one needs or uses, they must be broke, this is anti-consumer!
Did I get that right?
WMP Still Lives? (Score:1)
I moved on from Windows Media Player so long ago that I had almost forgotten it still exists. For some years now, my primary audio application has been MediaMonkey because it freely and easily syncs between Windows and Android. Yes, I'm that guy who has over 5,000 tracks on my computer and phone...
gnudb CDDB is still available. (Score:4, Informative)
When CDDB went away, gnudb stepped up and is now offering it for your favorite ripping software.
https://gnudb.org/
I am using it with CDex with no problems today. I buy a lot of expanded limited release film soundtrack scores from the likes of Intrada and LaLaLand, which are only released on CD so that they can afford the licensing from the studios for a small release. So I still have a great use for it. I've long since ripped the rest of my CD collection, but I buy a new soundtrack CD once every few months.
I wouldn't touch any microsoft-authored player.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and I prefer k3b. But most windows systems don't have it installed.
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that not even you do CD lookups from media players to play CDs, and instead convert the CD to some other format and embed the metadata with it?
This isn't a case of not touching a Microsoft-authored player, it's you no even doing the thing the completely irrelevant, even to you someone who has a CD collection, thing that the Microsoft software used to offer. Even if you *loved* Microsoft and had a bust of Gates on your nightstand you wouldn't be using the thing they just shut down.
Re: (Score:2)
> This isn't a case of not touching a Microsoft-authored player, it's you no even doing the thing the completely irrelevant, even to you someone who has a CD collection, thing that the Microsoft software used to offer.
...and the Most Difficult Sentence To Parse Of The Year Award goes to...
Typical register article (Score:2)
There is no resurgence in the CD as a physical media format. None what so ever. The trend is down. Last year was the fourth lowest sales year on record other than 1983, 1984 and 1985.
Sure the register paints this as some form of Microsoft incompetence rather than what it actually is: dropping support for a feature which has literally never been less relevant in all of Window's history. Also worth noting is they aren't the first to actually stop this. CDDB (the actual meaningful and most popular CD data look
Re: (Score:2)
> There are truly few things in the world I could give less of a shit about than this.
Perhaps then you should fuck off instead of writing multiple posts defending Microsoft about it.
What kind of moron... (Score:2)
What kind of moron is using windows media player today?
Soon you wont need it anyways. (Score:1)
Gen ai track names to match your gen ai redbook audio!
Alalbum namee: Gonna rock rock
1. The worldn't on fire -- again
2. ai like a i.
3. Microsoft is the best.
I used to use this a lot (Score:2)
When I was big into mp3s I used to use WIMP to identify albums with unuseful filenames and no tagging in them. It was spectacularly good at it.
Microsoft is obviously on a mission to deliberately enshittify for some inexplicable reason, as proven by their shuttering the things that they do that actually work.
Re: (Score:2)
> Microsoft is obviously on a mission to deliberately enshittify for some inexplicable reason, as proven by their shuttering the things that they do that actually work.
Because they shutdown something that even you admit you don't use anymore? Aren't you also the person who complains that Windows is full of useless bloat? Pick a lane man.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a very small feature so there's no reason to remove it from WIMP, which is very big. *I* don't use it any more because I got over using Windows for personal use.