* Windows Media Player applets, used to display embedded video files in Internet Explorer ( and other browsers that support the plugin )

* Formats with lossless compression, such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio ( filename extension APE ), WavPack ( filename extension WV ), TTA, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Apple Lossless ( filename extension m4a ), MPEG-4 SLS, MPEG-4 ALS, MPEG-4 DST, Windows Media Audio Lossless ( WMA Lossless ), and Shorten ( SHN ).

* Formats with lossy compression, such as MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, AAC, ATRAC and Windows Media Audio Lossy ( WMA lossy )).

* wma – the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft.

Newer ones include Free Lossless Audio Codec ( FLAC ), Apple's Apple Lossless, MPEG-4 ALS, Microsoft's Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless ( WMA Lossless ), Monkey's Audio, and TTA.

Probably the most widely used formats for delivering video over the internet are MPEG4, Quicktime, Flash and Windows Media, while MPEG2 is used almost exclusively for DVDs, providing an exceptional image in minimal size but resulting in a high level of CPU consumption to decompress.

A number of features from Windows 98 were incorporated also, such as an improved Device Manager, Windows Media Player, and a revised DirectX that made it possible for the first time for many modern games to work on the NT kernel.

** Windows XP Home Edition N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling

** Windows XP Professional N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling

* Windows XP Media Center Edition ( MCE ), released in October 2002 for desktops and notebooks with an emphasis on home entertainment.

Contained all features offered in Windows XP Professional and the Windows Media Center.

Subsequent versions are the same but have an updated Windows Media Center.

** Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003

** Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

** Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, released on 12 October 2004.

Vista also features new graphics features, the Windows Aero GUI, new applications ( such as Windows Calendar, Windows DVD Maker and some new games including Chess, Mahjong, and Purble Place ), Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, and a large number of underlying architectural changes.

In some countries ( Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland ), there are other editions that lack some features such as Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center and Internet Explorer called names such as " Windows 7 N ."

Some, like VirtualBox and VMware Player run on Windows and Linux hosts and can run many other operating systems.

Microsoft developed a media player known as ActiveMovie in 1995 that allowed streaming media and included a proprietary streaming format, which was the precursor to the streaming feature later in Windows Media Player 6. 4 in 1999.

* Windows Media Player ( Playlist Files )

As mentioned, SMIL is not yet native to web browsers, so in order to put SMIL in a web page, one must embed it and open it in a plug-in such as Apple's QuickTime or Microsoft's Windows Media Player.

This halftime show was sponsored by Victoria's Secret and available exclusively in Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Player also does not natively support Vorbis ; however, DirectShow filters exist to decode Vorbis in Windows Media Player and other Windows multimedia players that support DirectShow.

On or shortly before February 12, 2004, " portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4. 0 source code were illegally made available on the Internet.

Windows Media Player 12 is the most recent version of Windows Media Player.

With Windows 8, however, the player did not receive an upgrade ; the version of Media Player on Windows 8 is still 12.

However, the feature was removed in Windows Media Player 12.

Windows Media Player 12 adds native support for H. 264 and MPEG-4 Part 2 video formats, AAC audio and 3GP, MP4 and MOV container formats.

Windows Media Player 12 is also able to play AVCHD formats (. M2TS and. mts ).

Mini-mode has been removed in Windows Media Player 12 in favor of controls in the taskbar's interactive thumbnail preview which lacks volume control, a progress bar and information displayed whenever a new song is played.

The user interface has been redesigned in Windows Media Player 12 such that the Now Playing view plays media in a separate minimalist window with floating playback controls, and also gives access to the current playlist, visualizations, and enhancements.

Windows Media Player 12 can play unprotected songs from the iTunes library.

The thumbnail viewer of Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7 Home Premium

Color chooser has been removed in Windows Media Player 12.

While previous versions streamed media to UPnP compliant devices ( Digital Media Server role ) and could play media by fetching it from a network share ( Digital Media Player role ), Windows Media Player 12 can access media from the shared media libraries on the network or HomeGroup, stream media to DLNA 1. 5 compliant devices and allows itself ( once the remote control option is turned on ) to be remotely controlled by Digital Media Controller devices which stream media ( Digital Media Renderer role ).

Similarly, the Play To feature once enabled for remote PCs, by turning on remote control of the player, allows compliant devices and computers to be discovered and controlled remotely from a computer running Windows Media Player 12 ( Digital Media Controller role ).

If the devices do not support the streamed format, Windows Media Player 12 transcodes the format on-the-fly.

On January 12, 2006 Microsoft announced it had ceased development of Windows Media Player for Mac.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6, internally code-named ' Crossbow ', was officially released by Microsoft on February 12, 2007.

Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing video game developed for Windows by Black Isle Studios and released on December 12, 1999 by Interplay Entertainment.

* NMR's Geek Code 3. 12 CODEC ( source code available ; only tested on DOS and Windows so far )