Windows Media Player 12: How to permanently display the list pane

Solution if list pane is gone when changing movie:

This is a workaround from my part that I found helping when listpane is hidden after changing movies.

• add a mp3 file in top of your playlist then the movies you want to watch after that.
• with list pane and all files visible start your mp3 file and skip to next movie.
• list pane might be hidden again, just choose to show it again and hit mp3 file then a movie file.

wow thanks! that works... it sucks but it's a decent workaround. I found a solution once tho on google... its just a certain order of clicking things and it works... it changes videos in the now playing mode without closing the list pane between every video....

I am having the same problem with WMP and the video (not music) list! There is no reason I should have to reinstall Win7! I bought a computer with Win7 already installed and it would be a major undertaking to reinstall. There is no reason I should have to do that. I agree with all the posters who lay this at the feet of MS--they screwed up WMP here.

Thank you for your answer Vijay but as h4rl3qu1n said: Play List has nothing to do with my question.

I'd like the "List Pane" to be always displayed, even if I open a new file or when the player switch from a video to another.

Thanks

Hello guys!

I have the same problem. Creating or managing playlist has nothing to do with this. In earlier WMP versions, I used to have my WMP setup to start cold in the "Now Playing" mode, which has now also been changed to open in the Library. Why? At least, this should be optional.

As I see it, my library is the hard drive & I access it through the Windows Explorer. Drag & drop music, videos etc onto the WMP Now Playing list & double clicking in the list to fire them up. I still want the option of having "Now Playing" to show since it just speeds up switching between multiple files. To constantly hide the list seems very unintuitive to me. I do not have any use of the WMP library since for me it only complicates matters & slows the process of playing files quickly down. I'm not even going into the fact that the player & library seem to be two separate entities, making windows resizing etc necessary when trying to ceep a consistent look.

To start WMP in the Now Playing Tab you have to edit your WMP shortcuts, for us on Windows 7 64-bit it works like this:

Default -> "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" /prefetch:1

Changed to -> "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" /Task NowPlaying

That does the trick. Now, if we could also manage to actually keep the "Now Playing" list open when opening a new file, that would most certainly be a step forward.

It all boils down to this: I think most of us users basicly want any user interface elements (of any application for that matter) to stay the way we set it up until we ourselves decide to change it. As it stands now, WMP decides what parts of the UI it wants to hide & show for me & where. To illustrate a clear example of a UI inconsistency in WMP, look at the buttons to switch between the library & the player: while in the library, the button "Switch to Now Playing" is in the bottom right corner of the window while the button "Switch to Library" in the player is in the top right corner. If it's some type of modern humour, I sure laughed a little when I first tried to use it. Does a variable UI with "moving" buttons like this actually make sense to any usability testers out there?