Installing Media Players |
by Gnomie Matt Gruett
So why am I spending so much time talking about Microsoft's Windows Media Player, Apple's Quicktime Player and RealNetwork's RealPlayer in an MP3 column? Well, all three except Quicktime Player can handle MP3 files in addition to their own streaming formats. Fine and dandy except that installing or upgrading one of these products after having installed your MP3 player can result in you having to go back in and reinstall your MP3 player just to get things back to normal. If you regularly stream media from the Internet, you'll find that it's pretty hard to get by without having all of these programs installed because there is no standard streaming media format.
Microsoft's Windows Media Player can handle both it's own formats and MP3s in addition to RealNetwork's audio files and Quicktime movies. There's nothing wrong with a Swiss Army Knife-type media player except for the fact that I always seem to run into a Web site where the support is not 100% or implemented correctly within Windows Media Player. RealNetwork's RealPlayer can handle its own formats and MP3s. Quintessential CD Player can handle MP3s as well. Thus the dance has begun with each partner trying to lead.
My solution to this is simple and boils down to installing media related programs in a specific order. First, I install Windows Media Player. It's the only one that can handle Microsoft's streaming formats. Since it tends to want to be the default player for everything else, I put this at the head of the line. I follow this up with Apple's Quicktime Player and RealPlayer, which handle Quicktime and RealMedia formats respectively. Next I install Quintessential CD player (more about why I use a separate CD player in the next article) and then finally my MP3 player of choice.
I could avoid the hassle of this installation process by changing around the file types to suit my preferences after all of the media players are installed. But try and describe this to someone who isn't computer savvy enough to easily figure this out or gutsy enough to start hacking through the Windows' registry. It's much easier to just say, "Install these programs in this order." It's probably inevitable that at some time you'll have to upgrade one of these programs, which could disrupt the associations all over again (e.g., the RealPlayer upgrade or update resulted in it being your default MP3 player instead of WinAmp). Just launch the original program (in this case WinAmp) and it will often notify you that it has "lost" the association and ask if you want to set it back.
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