A few tips and things to help you get the best from your computer. Note - like the rest of this site, the page is still under construction, and so doesn't have much on it yet.

Playing Ogg Vorbis files in Windows Media Player

The software and instructions in this section are from here. If there's any discrepancy between that site, and this page, then this page is the one that's incorrect.

The current version of Windows Media Player doesn't support Ogg Vorbis files out of the box. Its easy enough to get it to play them, but I don't know of any way to get them in your media library, or get the ID3 tags displayed. For what its worth, WinAmp does handle them properly.

Download the setup file, either from this site or from the project homepage. If you go for the second options, make sure you get the stable version unless you want to work on the software, or you just like living dangerously :) I'll do my best to keep the version here up to date.

If you're upgrading from a previous version, you must remove the previous version before running the setup, via Add / Remove Programs in the Windows control panel. Whether you're upgrading or not, you should now close Windows Media Player and all other DirectShow applications. Now run the setup program.

When the setup completes, Windows Media Player will be able to play Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Theora and FLAC files. If you want them to automatically play in Media Player when double clicked, there's a little bit more to do.

  1. Start up a Windows Explorer window by pressing Windows-key+E.
  2. Choose "Options..." from the "Tools" menu.
  3. Click the "File Types" tab, then the "New" button.
  4. Enter "OGG" in the "File Extension" box, then click "OK".
  5. Click the "Advanced" button.
  6. In the text field at the top, enter a description for the file type, for example "Ogg Vorbis Audio".
  7. Click the "Change Icon..." button, and then when the new window appears, click the "Browse..." button.
  8. Use the file selection dialog that appears to select "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe", and click "Open".
  9. Choose the second icon in the selection window that appears and click "OK".
  10. Click the "New..." button.
  11. In the dialog which appears, enter "Play" in the top field (labelled "Action"), and the following text (including quotes) in the bottom field. Note that its a number one at the end, not a letter L. "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" "%1"
  12. Click "OK", "OK" and "Close" to get rid of all the dialogs.
  13. Repeat the above for any other file formats you want to play on double click.