WMP12 + ffdshow?

[Gew]

Hi!

As I get it, M$ has determined that one shall use their implemented codecs and filters, and none other. Well, I'd like to use ffdshow. Don't get me wrong, I usually have MPC do all my media, but there's a little thing (TotalCMD/lister/mmedia) that pulls a wmplayer applet thingie for media playback, and I'd really love that to work. On XP, WMP10 fetches my DirectShow filters (mainly ffdshow) out of the box (like it should), but here in W7, it messes.

I would really like to hear if there's any known solution to bypass Micro$oft's effort to leach people. I've done lots of Googling and tried tutorials and even crib sheet batch scripts that tries to downgrade WMP12 to 11. I finally managed to get it to WMP11, but -- funny -- it still won't load ffdshow on playback. Really weird.

I'd appreciate all feedback / tips.

Ty in adv~
G.

[Superb]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146910
Downgrading to WMP11 isn't needed, obviously.
And funny how you write "leach people", when Microsoft actually pays for having the built-in H.264 and MPEG-2 decoders in Windows 7. They are also great DXVA filters (MPC-HC's and ffdshow's both have some bugs), for the supporting hardware of course.

[Gew]

Wow! Such a night.

Let me first say, I usually don't even bother with WMP. Havn't used it on a regular basis, well, I think ever. I'm also not a big fan of VLC (like many other), but have instead been a big MPC+ffdshow fanboy for many many years.

Anyways..
Thing is, I'm also a big fan of Windows Commander (nowadays called Total Commander). Moreover, the F3/lister function in there calls for the WMP player applet per default, when having "mmedia" wlx plugin installed (the only sane choice, IMHO).

In XP, this player applet (I believe it's actually just calling a thread on wmv.dll) has always popped my prefered DirectShow filters/codecs (ffdshow) per my settings, and it has worked like a charm. Now, I'm trying out W7, and I found this thing with the new enhanced WMP12 using its own routines.

So, I started my Google search for ways to downgrade to WMP11. I came up with different batch scripts and setup kits for downgrading. Many of them failed, and I actually don't know how much harm I caused registry keys (which and where?) by doing so, and I just ended up with errors. But at this time, I was very neurotic, and I had firmly decided that I would overcome any possible obstacle, and get this to work as preferred.

Finally, after many many disappointments through the night, I uninstalled (or 'disabled', more likely) WMP12 by the "Turn windows features on/off" option in Control panel. I was so sick of it. Funny thought, TotalCmd still managed to hook a wmv.dll thread (I analyzed the process), even tho I couldn't find any wmv.dll present anywhere. When checking the About box, it returned WMP10 all of a sudden. However, DirectShow filters would still not work.

Now, it's 4 AM in the morning, and I've been doing this sh*tty WMP10-11-12 puzzle, trying to fit them pieces together, since like 11 PM. I was just about to call it a night (give up), when I rechecked my old post here. And I found the tool. I "reactivated" WMP12, and ran the tool, flagged ffdshow on everything, and ticked each and every "Disable.." option, applied.

And now, of course, it worked!
How amazing!

I honestly don't know whether I should laugh or cry. And I must also bite the shameful apple and send my apologizes to Bill and his crew, working with this new OS. Of course they're not trying to leach; they're trying to make a good operating system.

As for the filters, it's fully possible that the ffdshow codec has bugs, but I have had so wonderful experience with it for so many years, so I'm gonna stick to it like glue. And now, I call it a night!

Cheers! :helpful: :thanks: :thanks: :thanks:

PS. clsid for president!!!

[PetitDragon]

eat this "Win7DSFilterTweaker", fanboy!;)