Microsoft released the beta version of Windows Media Player 11 yesterday. I’ve seen it go through several iterations behind the scenes and overall I’m happy with the features they are showing off so far. It’s certainly stable enough to install in place of Windows Media Player 10 (although it’s always smart to set a restore point). I’m running WMP11 on my main machine at home and taking MTV URGE for the 14-day test drive. So far I love it. Before you tune out because the service was built by MTV, keep in mind that it has more than just MTV tracks. They’ve got something like 2 million songs you can listen to and most of them have never been on MTV. [insert favorite joke about MTV never playing music here] The number one reason to download the WMP11 Beta today is the improved search functionality. Search in the new version of the player is head-and-shoulders above what we’ve seen in all previous versions. You get as-you-type search with super fast results by album, artist, genre, title, and a whole list of attributes you’ll probably never use. I wrote up a quick list of tips for anyone who wants to do power searches in WMP11. So far there’s no podcasting support built-in, but I’m hoping we’ll see it before the final build ships (unless they’re secreting it away for Vista, which would be stupid). URGE appears to be the only company with their store built into the beta, so if you were taking advantage of the free plays from Napster you might want to hold off on the upgrade, unless you use the Napster standalone app instead. Otherwise, download Windows Media Player 11 and dive in.

[tags]windows media,mtv,napster,music downloads[/tags]