Another Windows 10 / WMP compatibility thread...

I have upgraded several of my family's PCs from Windows 7 Professional to Windows 10 Pro. In all but the last one -- a laptop -- WMP 12 is present after the upgrade, shows up in the default apps list, and works perfectly. With the last one it did not show up in the list and I can't find it anywhere on the disk. I googled it only to find that it apparently isn't compatible with Windows 10 -- big surprise to me and the 5 previously upgraded PCs that have it working. When I tried to download it the Microsoft web site gave me an error saying that the program was not compatible with my OS (Win 10).

In fact, I'm listening to some nice music being played on WMP 12 on my Windows 10 Pro desktop PC as I type this note.

I'm assuming that if it runs on all of my other Win 10 Pro machines that it should also be on, and run, on the last upgrade, the laptop. Can anyone explain this? Of course my preference is to get WMP 12 on the laptop, not lose it on all of the other machines. :)

Anyone?

Thanks for your reply Kari. There are lots of easily found web posts that say WMP is not compatible with Windows 10. The latest download you can find on the Microsoft site is for Win 8.1 and when you try to dl/install it you get an error saying that it is incompatible with Win 10. And no, I didn't install an N or KN version -- just Win 10 Pro.

I tried the stand-alone installer from your link. It completes without error but if it installed WMP somewhere then neither I nor Win 10 can find it. There is a Windows Media Player folder in Program Files (x86) and inside it are all the appropriate folders for an installed WMP but every one of them are empty On all my other machines Windows Media Player is installed in the Program Files folder. There is a WMP install package in wow64 WinSxS folder but when I double-click on the executable contained in it I get an error saying that it is incompatible with my OS version.

System properties shows that I am running a 64 bit OS.

I just don't understand what is going on here...

I just googled whether Windows Media Player would be available for Windows 10 and surprisingly, the Microsoft website really does not list it. It does for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, also mentioning that it would be part of the operating system. But it does mention it for Windows 10. I also have not found a download like "If it's broken, download this installer to fix it".

Anyway, if you don't have an "N" version of Windows 10, then WMP should actually be part of your Windows installation. In my case, the upgrade just left WMP where it was, that is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\.

I think most of what I ran across was about the DVD playback capability not being included but on all but this machine it appears that WMP is available for DVD playback too. I've looked everywhere I know of or was pointed to by google but have not found a reference to a Windows 10 version or an active download link. The update link you provided me will [I think] add back the DVD functionality but it does not include the player itself.

In a search for wmplayer.exe I find it in the installation packages folder but for whatever reason it just isn't getting installed. The first screen capture below is from the laptop that has the issue. The second is from one of the machines that WMP 12 is working properly on.

Yes, that was the first thing I tried. Well, actually the first thing was double-click followed by right-click/open followed by right-click and look for "Open with...". Though I am the administrator I also tried "Run as Administrator". In no case did it ever try to run a program -- nothing, nada, zip, zilch. When I tried running as administrator I got the security confirmation followed by nothing.

Well, that's pretty embarrassing. I've looked there 3-4 times but was looking for "Windows Media Player" specifically and didn't find it.

It was selected at the "Features" level but not at the WMP level. I selected it and got an error saying that windows could not complete the change. Then I rebooted and cleared it, again rebooting before selecting it again.

Now I have WMP 12 working just like its supposed to. Don't know what happened to get it messed up during the upgrade but happy to have it back.

Thanks all for taking your time to help me. I appreciate it very much.

Best regards,

Howard