Missing Media Player toolbar for Windows 7 taskbar

Question

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit PC. On Windows XP I could get Windows Media Player to minimize to the task bar and get nice a nice WMP toolbar in the Task Bar.

Now when I right-click the taskbar and select "Toolbars" there is no "Windows Media Player" toolbar to select.

Any idea how I can switch this on?

Answer 1

How to Enable Windows Media Player Taskbar Toolbar in Windows 7

• You will first need to get a copy of the %programfiles%\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll file from a WMP 11 installation. You can obtain it from your friend’s system or you can use the download links provided at the end of this post. Remember that you must copy from a system with the same OS architecture (i.e. 32 bit or 64 bit).

• Paste this file in the %programfiles%\Windows Media Player directory.

• Type services.msc in the Start Menu and hit Enter. Ensure that Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service is stopped.

• Start command prompt as administrator by typing cmd in the Start Menu and pressing Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

• Type regsvr32 “%programfiles%\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll” and press Enter.

• Restart the Windows Media Player Network Sharing service (if you had stopped it earlier on).

• Run Windows Media Player and minimize it. Right click on an empty spot in the taskbar and select Toolbars > Windows Media Player. Ignore the warning and you should get the Windows Media Player taskbar toolbar.

Download Windows Media Player wmpband.dll: 32 bit or 64 bit

Source

Answer 2

The strict answer here is that - you can't. Microsoft have inexplicably removed this functionality from WMP12 (which ships with Windows 7).

There are guides for getting WMP11 working under Windows 7 and WMP11 always had this functionality.

IMO this is not the only thing that MS fundamentally "broke" with WMP12 - the advanced tag editor is also inexplicably missing.