Media Player web address for album info changed in recent Windows 10 upgrade

Anonymous
2018-05-06T16:38:03+00:00

After a recent major upgrade for Windows 10, my Windows Media Player is trying to find Album information from a new website that does not work.  The old web address was (fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com) and new web address it is using is (musicmatch-ssl.xboxlive.com) which is not a valid address.  How do I change the web address used for album metadata back to correct address?  Searched old message boards with no luck.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Settings

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Anonymous
2018-07-07T13:27:41+00:00

Found a solution that worked for me:

  1. Start regedit.exe
  2. Navigate to "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\TunerConfig"
  3. Look for setting PREFERREDMETADATAPROVIDER -- it should have a value "pmpMusicMatch"
  4. Edit the setting PREFERREDMETADATAPROVIDER, and clear the value so you have a blank value
  5. Save / exit regedit.exe
  6. Restart Windows Media Player, you should be restored back to fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com

What an unnecessary pain in the proverbial.

Update: this DOES NOT WORK any more.

Microsoft appear to have strangled this option off entirely. We are now stuck with the much lesser offering that is "musicmatch-ssl.xboxlive.com".

Microsoft: thanks for nothing.

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-06-16T21:57:38+00:00

    There are several files named regedit.exe on my Windows 7 Pro machine.   Clicking on each of them generates the error msg "The application was unable to start correctly (Oxc0000142).  Click OK to close the application."    How do you work around that?

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-06-16T20:59:37+00:00

    It doesn't work with update 1809. Last update it was working was 1803, you need to revert to previous update.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-06-16T11:31:34+00:00

    I'm inclined to agree with Tony on this, Microsoft are crippling WMP with removing the fai metaservice.

    For those that can cope with losing the superior fai metaservice library and reverting back to the inferior XBox library in WMP, the steps are simpy this:

    1. Start regedit.exe
    2. Navigate to "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\TunerConfig"
    3. Look for setting PREFERREDMETADATAPROVIDER
    4. Edit the setting PREFERREDMETADATAPROVIDER, and set the value to "pmpMusicMatch"
    5. Save / exit regedit.exe
    6. Restart Windows Media Player, you should be restored back to the XBox library

    It's not as good, but at least it works.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-06-15T21:01:32+00:00

    microsoft sucks for killing this off....pitful.

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