Comments on: Convincing .flac files to play in Windows Media Player 12

By: John

John — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 02:31:33 +0000

Quote “The 64-bit version of the codecs don’t work with the default (32-bit) version of Windows Media Player”

Yes they do. I’ve installed the x64 codecs and WMP x86 plays flac files fine.

Unfortunately, the Tag Support Plugin causes WMP 12 on Windows 7 x64 to crash when playing movies.

Music plays fine, it’s just movies that make it immediately crash if the plugin is enabled.

Their website states it supports x86 only, but I don’t know for certain if that’s the reason.

Anyway, instead I’ve had to use “WMP Tag Support Extender v1.4″ or “WMP Plus v1.2″.

Either one work great on x64 without crashing WMP.

By: cuzzie

cuzzie — Mon, 17 May 2010 06:22:47 +0000

Very fast and easy Didn’t even have to restart my pc

thanks !

By: Anthony dErcole

Anthony dErcole — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:28:02 +0000

I checked again and some of my songs are under the artists name and some are still in the other files section. I’ve tried that plug-in before and I don’t think it fixed it either but I’ll try again. Would be nice if it just worked out of the box. I would even pay a small fee to M$ if they would have full flac and other lossless support for WMP. I remember when XP came out I had to buy an mp3 decoder to use on WMP. Why can’t they just offer that now? They know people would pay it. Too bad we can’t sue them for their lack of support for an open source codec out the box. Say they are trying to monopolize with their own wma lossless. Or do you think we could???:)

By: Bryce Thomas

Bryce Thomas — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:53:50 +0000

Hi Anthony,

Yep, my .flac files show up with my regular artists files in media player. I haven’t tried WMP Tag Plus though (I’m using the tag support plugin that I link to above in my post), so WMP Tag Plus may have something to do with your .flac files not showing up under artists on your machine. All I can suggest is that you try the tag plugin I’ve linked to above and see how that goes.

Good luck!

By: Anthony dErcole

Anthony dErcole — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:23:28 +0000

Hey Bryce, I have Windows 7 64 bit on my machine and I’ve never had a problem playing flac files and they are in my library on WMP 32 and 64 bit programs but they are in the other media section. I have WMP tag plus installed and Shark007 codecs for 32 and 64 bit installed. Do you actually have your flac files showing up with your regular artists files? That’s what I’m trying to do. I have wma, flac, and mp3 files on my machine and the wma and mp3 all show up in the library under the artists name but not the flac. any help would be appreciated.

By: Bryce Thomas

Bryce Thomas — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:13:57 +0000

Hi Jaq,

After having read the existing articles on getting .flac playing in Windows Media Player I too thought it must be a real pain or not even possible to get working. I was actually quite surprised by how easy it was in the end, though based on your comment it sounds as though things can be a little more difficult with XP. I’ve only been playing .flac files/using the plugin mentioned in my article through media player 12 for probably two weeks, but during that time it hasn’t missed a beat (bad pun, I know). If you come across any other problems, please do share.

By: Jaq

Jaq — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:35:29 +0000

Thanks for the article. I would have to say that getting .flac & .ogg files to play well with WMP is a chore at the very least. After installing the plugin support in Xp, WMP still freezes and crashes regularly. Although I have my files playing in my Win7 64, I will withhold my judgement until I really put it through the paces.