Upgrade Windows Media Player

  1. Upgrade Windows Media Player 11
  2. Upgrade Windows Media Player For Windows 7
  3. Microsoft Windows Media Player 10
Media

Windows Media Player is available for Windows-based devices. Use this table to find the right version of the Player for your system. (If you've got a Mac, you can download Windows Media Components for QuickTime to play Windows Media files.)

Operating system/browser

Player version

How to get it

Windows 10

Windows Media Player 12
Learn more

Included in clean installs of Windows 10 as well as upgrades to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. In some editions of Windows 10, it's included as an optional feature that you can enable. To do that, select the Start button, then select Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Manage optional features > Add a feature > Windows Media Player, and select Install.

DVD playback isn't included. Go to the DVD playback for Windows page to find out how to add DVD playback to Windows 10.

Windows 8.1

Windows Media Player 12
Learn more

Included in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Pro, but doesn't include DVD playback. Go to the DVD playback for Windows page to find out how to add DVD playback to Windows 8.1. For Windows Media Player 12 for Windows 8.1 N and KN editions, get the Media Feature Pack.

Windows RT 8.1

N/A

Windows Media Player isn't available for Windows RT 8.1.

Windows 7

Windows Media Player 12
Learn more

Included in Windows 7 Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions. For Windows 7 N or KN editions, get the Media Feature Pack.

Mac OS X

Windows Media Components for QuickTime

How to upgrade to WMP 11? If you have Windows Media Player 10 on your Windows XP, you may follow the steps outlined below to upgrade to the next version, without the need for Windows Genuine Advantage Validation (WGA Validation). Open the older version of Windows Media Player and navigate to Tools = Options. Click on ‘Check for updates once. For info about the latest version for your system, see Get Windows Media Player. To manually troubleshoot or upgrade your installation of the Player, try the following: Click the Start button, type features, and then select Turn Windows features on or off. Expand Media Features and see whether the Windows Media Player check box is selected.

Windows Media Player user experience: Enables Windows Media Player features, such as the ability to play media files and audio CDs, manage media in a library, create a playlist, provide metadata (including album art) for media, create an audio CD, transfer music to a portable music player, and play streaming content from a website. Get the latest Media Player downloads from the Official Microsoft Download Center.

If you want to reinstall Windows Media Player, try the following:

  1. Click the Start button, type features, and select Turn Windows features on or off.

  2. Scroll down and expand Media Features, clear the Windows Media Player check box, and click OK.

  3. Restart your device. Windows Media Player should be uninstalled.

  4. Repeat step 1.

  5. Scroll down and expand Media Features, select the Windows Media Player check box, and click OK.

  6. Restart your device. Windows Media player should now be reinstalled.

Upgrade Windows Media Player

Note: To troubleshoot issues like playback and codec problems, see the 'Get help' section in Windows Media Player.

The x265 development team is excited to announce the availability of the x265 HEVC Upgrade! Now anyone with a 64 bit Windows PC can easily take advantage of the next generation video compression standard, HEVC.

Upgrade Windows Media Player 11

The x265 HEVC Upgrade makes it easy to convert MP4 video files to HEVC, and play back these files with Windows Media Player!

HEVC is capable of compressing video files up to twice as efficiently than the current video compression standard (H.264). That’s not a typo! At typical bit rates, the new HEVC video compression standard is twice as powerful as the old AVC video standard! You can take the benefits of 2x higher compression efficiency in one of two ways (or some combination of both)…

  • Save your videos with much higher quality at any chosen bit rate. To demonstrate the difference, we encoded Tears of Steel (a popular movie from the Blender Foundation) with the leading H.264 encoder (x264), and with x265 at the same bit rate. A representative screen capture (scaled down to 50%) is shown below. Click the image to see a full resolution version of this comparison.
  • With twice the compression efficiency, you can save your video files with identical quality in only half the storage space. The x265 Encoder lets you store twice as much video on any hard drive or cloud file sharing service, uploading and sharing video twice as fast.
Upgrade Windows Media PlayerUpgrade windows media player to play mp4

Play HEVC video files

Upgrade Windows Media Player For Windows 7

Upgrade windows media player for windows vista

Microsoft Windows Media Player 10


The x265 HEVC Upgrade also includes UHDcode, the fastest, most reliable HEVC software decoder in the world. Enjoy higher quality video and/or smaller video files. The UHDcode DirectShow Filter installs on any 64 bit Windows PC, letting you play MP4 files with HEVC video using Windows Media Player, 64 bit.