WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP Options

[stephenv2]

Can't install on Win 7 Pro x64. If WMP is running - it says, you must close WMP. If it's close, it says it can't find WMP and install fails?

[Tim De Baets]

What's the exact text of the error message that is shown when WMP is closed?

Where is the wmplayer.exe file located on your system? (you can perform a search if you aren't sure)

Please open the Start Menu, type regedit in the Search field and press Enter. In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\wmplayer.exe. What is the value of the (Default) entry there?

[stephenv2]

What's the exact text of the error message that is shown when WMP is closed?

Where is the wmplayer.exe file located on your system? (you can perform a search if you aren't sure)

Please open the Start Menu, type regedit in the Search field and press Enter. In the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\wmplayer.exe. What is the value of the (Default) entry there?

"Setup was unable to find Windows Media Player on this computer. Please make sure that at least version 11 of Windows Media Player is installed, this is required to use WMP Tag Plus.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player

The entry wmplayer.exe does not exist in that part of the registry.

[Tim De Baets]

Hmm, that entry should definitely be there when you have WMP installed. Did you perhaps use some kind of registry cleaner?

To re-add the entry, copy/paste the following into Notepad, save it as a WMP.reg file, and double-click this file to add it to the registry. Then launch WMP Tag Plus setup again - it should now find WMP and continue with the rest of the installation.

CODE

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\wmplayer.exe]
@=hex(2):25,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,\
  00,73,00,28,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,29,00,25,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,\
  6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,4d,00,65,00,64,00,69,00,61,00,20,00,50,00,6c,00,61,\
  00,79,00,65,00,72,00,5c,00,77,00,6d,00,70,00,6c,00,61,00,79,00,65,00,72,00,\
  2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,00,00
"Path"=hex(2):25,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,46,00,69,00,6c,\
  00,65,00,73,00,28,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,29,00,25,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,\
  64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,4d,00,65,00,64,00,69,00,61,00,20,00,50,00,6c,\
  00,61,00,79,00,65,00,72,00,00,00

[stephenv2]

Hmm, that entry should definitely be there when you have WMP installed. Did you perhaps use some kind of registry cleaner?

To re-add the entry, copy/paste the following into Notepad, save it as a WMP.reg file, and double-click this file to add it to the registry. Then launch WMP Tag Plus setup again - it should now find WMP and continue with the rest of the installation.

I do use a registry cleaner - clearly that key is not required for WMP as it's always worked just fine - but that entry fixed the install - seems to have worked just fine. Thanks very much for your help!

[Tim De Baets]

No problem

This once again shows that registry cleaners usually cause more harm than good. Besides that, there's really no need to 'clean' the registry.

[judderod]

So can I just confirm there is still no fix for getting WMP/WMC to recognise .M4A files with ALAC audio as music and put them in the library?

And the only known fix at the moment is to rename all .M4A files containing ALAC to .MP4 (thus creating another problem that Windows Explorer recognises these files as MPEG-4 Videos?

Looking in the registry I found HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.alac

So I renamed an album's .M4A files to .alac

The files appeared in the music library and played. The track info was there, the album art was there, but the album info was not.

Could this be an option?

[Tim De Baets]

There already is a fix, although still in beta:

This is a known issue with WMP 12: lossless M4A files are always added to Other media instead of Music. Fortunately, I have recently been able to come up with a fix for this. The fix is included in a new beta version of WMP Tag Plus (download here).

After installing the beta, existing lossless M4A files in Other media will need to be removed from the library, and re-added (through Tools - Advanced - Restore deleted library items). When re-adding, they should now appear in Music instead.

Please give the fix a try, and let me know if it works alright. Apart from the fix, nothing has been changed in this beta version.

[judderod]

Tim you're THE MAN

Thank you.

I've uninstalled 1.2 and updated to 1.3 beta. All working perfectly.

All I need to do now is hope there will soon be a way to get WMC to play audio to a non-default audio device...

[zafer]

Hello Tim, hello everyone on this forum. Tim, this is an old question/request I'm raising : is there any chance we get support for musepack (mpc) files in WMP Tag Plus v2 I guess? Again, thanks for all the great work and the efforts

This post has been edited by zafer: Feb 22 2012, 20:07

[Tim De Baets]

TagLib, the tagging library that WMP Tag Plus uses, now does support both Monkey's Audio and Musepack, which makes it possible to have a single handler for APE tags. But unfortunately, Musepack support won't make it in the upcoming 2.0 release.

[zafer]

Yes indeed the Taglib's developper site says
"Currently it supports both ID3v1 and ID3v2 for MP3 files, Ogg Vorbis comments and ID3 tags and Vorbis comments in FLAC, MPC, Speex, WavPack TrueAudio, WAV, AIFF, MP4 and ASF files. "

Well I guess I really have to learn to code now Anyway, thanks for the good work, at least I have tags for my flacs

[73ChargerFan]

New user here, 1.3beta2, Windows 7 x64, WMP12 32bit. I see that using WMP to create its media library works well, and that library is then used by Media Center x64, so this is great.

Regarding 64 bit support, I hope you can port to it, as most everyone I know uses Win7 x64 now, and I wouldn't count on 32 bit WMP lasting too long. I use other programs for tag editing so no problem now.

Thank you for your work!

This post has been edited by 73ChargerFan: Feb 25 2012, 22:46

[Tim De Baets]

I could actually port WMP Tag Plus to 64-bit but I just don't see why I should put all the effort into doing that. Especially not with limited time and much nicer features to add. Since the 32-bit version of WMP is still included with Windows 7 x64 and even the default, WMP Tag Plus still works fine there.

[mercury_22]

I could actually port WMP Tag Plus to 64-bit but I just don't see why I should put all the effort into doing that. Especially not with limited time and much nicer features to add. Since the 32-bit version of WMP is still included with Windows 7 x64 and even the default, WMP Tag Plus still works fine there.

Because many people are using win (7) x64 & WMC which is, as you know, x64 based (WMP x64) and if someone opens first the music library in WMC the tags are "gone" even if you open after that in the x86 WMP (you have to restore media library in WMP x86) .

Most of the users this days don't even bother with WMP and go directly to WMC (or foobar2000 )

P.S. Also taking in consideration how many people have asked for a x64 version ( from those which bother to post here) I really think it's a "big" need for the x64 version

[Tim De Baets]

Because many people are using win (7) x64 & WMC which is, as you know, x64 based (WMP x64) and if someone opens first the music library in WMC the tags are "gone" even if you open after that in the x86 WMP (you have to restore media library in WMP x86) .

Restoring the media library is overkill in this case - simply deleting the songs without tags from the library and then adding them again will give you tags in the library. WMP Tag Plus 2.0 will even be able to scan the library for songs without tags and re-add them for you. This scan will happen automatically when WMP is first launched after the plug-in's installation, but can also be run manually later on.

I know that there are issues with x64 Media Center because of lacking 64-bit support, but a 32-bit version of the plug-in is what you'll have to do with for now.

[eltonart]

Hi all,

Might be a bit premature, but it seems WMP Tag Plus doesn't work in Windows 8 CP.
Very strange because it looks like WMP and WMC have not changed much but I guess you never know with MS.
WMP version is 12.0.8250.0.
Tried all the usual tricks but there is no tag data for me.
I used it in Windows 7 x86 and x64 in the past with no problems!

Anyone else tried Windows 8?

Thanks, Elton.

This post has been edited by eltonart: Mar 1 2012, 15:08

[eltonart]

Hi all,

Might be a bit premature, but it seems WMP Tag Plus doesn't work in Windows 8 CP.
Very strange because it looks like WMP and WMC have not changed much but I guess you never know with MS.
WMP version is 12.0.8250.0.
Tried all the usual tricks but there is no tag data for me.
I used it in Windows 7 x86 and x64 in the past with no problems!

Anyone else tried Windows 8?

Thanks, Elton.

Quick update. Just tried WMPTagSupportExtender 1.4 which I stopped using ages ago because WMP Tag Plus is better, and it works. Weird.

[Tim De Baets]

Thanks for reporting this. I haven't had the chance yet to test WMP Tag Plus on Windows 8 CP, but I hope to do so this weekend or later next week. I will report my findings then.

Quick update. Just tried WMPTagSupportExtender 1.4 which I stopped using ages ago because WMP Tag Plus is better, and it works. Weird.

Not very surprising as WMP Tag Support Extender only does some shallow hooking into WMP to provide tagging support. For making things like setting the duration possible, WMP Tag Plus needs to hook much deeper with the drawback that it gets more version dependent.

[eltonart]

Thanks for reporting this. I haven't had the chance yet to test WMP Tag Plus on Windows 8 CP, but I hope to do so this weekend or later next week. I will report my findings then.

Quick update. Just tried WMPTagSupportExtender 1.4 which I stopped using ages ago because WMP Tag Plus is better, and it works. Weird.

Not very surprising as WMP Tag Support Extender only does some shallow hooking into WMP to provide tagging support. For making things like setting the duration possible, WMP Tag Plus needs to hook much deeper with the drawback that it gets more version dependent.

Hi Tim. Thanks for your reply.

OK, I can see this in the way WMP Tag Plus has much tighter integration. I think WMC is the best user experience for a HTPC and FLAC is critical for me to have an enjoyable music experience (die MP3, die!). So your plugin has made this possible in a seamless way. BTW, 8MC is no different to 7MC yet but it's still nice to play with Win8. Thanks for the great plugin.

I just made a donation because we all appreciate your time in developing such an excellent free tool!

Cheers, Elton.

[Tim De Baets]

Thanks for the donation Elton

[Tim De Baets]

Might be a bit premature, but it seems WMP Tag Plus doesn't work in Windows 8 CP.

I have just tried WMP Tag Plus on Windows 8 CP and can confirm that it's not yet compatible: an error message about a missing core component is displayed at WMP startup and there's no extra tag support at all. The final 2.0 version will be compatible, provided that this doesn't require too much work.

[hunggh]

what time will the final ver 2.0 be released? I am using Win 8 CP and looking forward to your nice work in the next release. WMPPlus 2.1 can not work well without WMP Tag Plus (context to edit tag for flac file disappear)
Sorry for my bad english

[Tim De Baets]

It will be released when it's done

By the way, Windows Media Player Plus! will also require a new release to make it compatible with Window 8.

[eltonart]

Thanks Tim, looking forward to it.
WMP Plus is not so critical because there are other ways to edit metadata in FLAC.

This post has been edited by eltonart: Mar 11 2012, 04:54