How to play FLAC file with Windows Media Player 12

Anonymous
2009-12-30T20:15:31+00:00

Is there any way to play Flac files with Windows Media Player 12?  A hefty percentage of my music library is FLAC. 

Thanks!

Lloyd

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2010-01-05T15:56:49+00:00

Hello L Goldfine,

Thank you for your inquiry.

The Flac extension is not a supported file type of Windows Media Player. You may however user your favorite search engine to search for a solution that may convert the file to a Windows Media Player supported file type.

For more information on Windows Media Player supported file types you may also view the following link: 

Information about the Multimedia file types that Windows Media Player supports

I hope this information is helpful.

Thank you,

Mary

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-09-07T21:23:23+00:00

    For all you Windows users, I found the answer...

    1.  For Windows Media 11 - Windows XP and Vista users...download the registry and madflac from the following website...http://a8t8.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2518DD508BB713E8!239.entry?sa=690775024

    2.  For Windows Media 12 - Windows 7...http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/01/playing-flac-files-in-media-center.html

    It does work...but be sure and reboot your computer after install...

    Wow what a surprise Microsoft not supporting opensource because its - free...Linux plays them just fine!!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-09-16T19:25:35+00:00

    First, thanks for the helpful information.

    Second, WMP12 support for FLAC has nothing do with open or closed-source issues. The fact is that FLAC developers are responsible for creating codecs which are usable by major audio players-- that's how "the open source movement" works. Developers give their time to the overall effort to advance open source software and standards. Do you think the WINAMP team didn't create a FLAC codec because they hate open source?

    Just as importantly, "Linux" does NOT support FLAC; Linux is an operating system, not a media player. Other applications, which are also the result of the sweat and toil of other open source developers, provide the support for playing audio files, and many of those applications also support FLAC. Some of those third party applications also work on Windows.

    WMP12 itself is not a mysterious black box designed to infuriate programmers and users and overtly complicate the usage of open standards. It is infinitely extensible and has freely accessible APIs which enable developers from anywhere to interact with WMP (yet in true microsoft fashion requires, afaik, ActiveX).

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-09-17T08:56:55+00:00

    Try here http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html

    It worked for me - Windows 7 Proffesional 32 bits.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-09-18T16:05:12+00:00

    "Second, WMP12 support for FLAC has nothing do with open or closed-source issues"

    The comment about open-source was not about WMP supporting FLAC, which it obviously does through the extensible DirectShow mechanism, but about Microsoft shipping codecs itself. (Which is basically what i wrote back on August 31). Apart from the license issues, of course there would be the issues of support and room on the Windows installation media. Since FLAC files account for some minuscule fraction of all digital media files, there is of course very little incentive for Microsoft ( or Apple or others for that matter ) to ship codecs directly. For everyone who doesn't use FLAC files, they would see such codecs as "bloat" (which is essentially everything in an O/S which you personally don't use or aren't aware that you use, and which you would complain about if it were missing).

    "(yet in true microsoft fashion requires, afaik, ActiveX)"

    Are you confusing this with DirectX?

    Every operating system has programmable components (for media applications: Quicktime, Xine, GStreamer, ...) . If not ActiveX something else. At least MS doesn't try to prohibit various programming tools as for example Apple does with iOS.

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