So I just realized that my plan to stick with Windows 7 on my trusty garage laptop has a downside (i.e. the hardware is not compatible with Windows 10.) In June of 2019 MS cut off the server that pulls all the metadata from CDs that you rip ... everything is 'unknown album, unknown track' now. MS says ...

quote Going forward, you may be unable to view information (metadata) such as the title, genre, and artist for songs, and the director, actors, and cover art for movies in Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. After looking at customer feedback and usage data, Microsoft decided to discontinue this service.

http://fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com/

After looking at customer feedback, my aunt fanny! I guess having a PROFIT of over $80 billion leaves things to tight to support legacy customers. Aside from adding all the metadata by hand, does anyone have a workaround for this?

Well back in the day we used https://www.real.com/?bypass=us
Have no idea if its any good now

Check out two different apps:

https://picard.musicbrainz.org/

Picard is not real intuitive, but it is real good.

and

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

mp3tag is Windows only, so I use the Linux equivalent, Puddletag.

If you are just looking for a good media player, there is VLC.

[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 01-21-2020).]

Thanks guys, I will check those out.

For those investors who haven't looked at MS recently ....

For an alternative player try VLC media player. It's free and handles pretty much any format.

There are a few ways to work around the issue.

1) Use a different media player. If you're OK with trying a different media player, this is probably the easiest option. Non-Microsoft media players will use non-Microsoft metadata.

2) Get a metadata editing app (like mp3tag mentioned above). It can get the metadata from a non-Microsoft database. This will let you keep Windows Media Player, but will require editing all your media files. (It puts the metadata in the audio file, so WMP can just grab it from the file).

3) Get a non-Microsoft CD ripping app (Exact Audio Copy is my favorite), and use that to rip all your CDs again. A good CD ripping app will automatically get metadata and insert it into the audio files. This will also let you keep Windows Media Player. Because the audio files themselves will contain the metadata. But it will require re-ripping all your CDs.

If you want to keep WMP, you could use option #2 to edit your existing audio files, and option #3 to rip any new CDs you buy. Or you could just get another media player. Whichever you prefer.

Even early Win10 versions didn't support new WMP media name service.

Workaround?? You can do all of the above...

Many alternates don't organize rip copies well or at all. WMP sorted the rip files to mostly the right way on the HD plus tag the files too that works in nearly everything to play.
Many "MP3 players" including some phones still hate, even crash, w/ files using newer tag versions so you have to change default tag system in many of the alternates. If not sure, rip a disk w/ whatever then test on all "players" you have before have many rips that won't work on some or all of your players.

ogg and other formats maybe "better then MP3" but has same problem even if a "player" say supports them. Example: X player only supports Y files made by a to c versions but barfs/crashes on files made by d and above versions.

But note that is only a matter of time everyone else stops supporting or even installing on Win7 including FF and other browsers. Win7 EOL passed on Jan 14.
I have been running "dual boot" 7 and 10 on one machine and XP 7 and 10 on another just for these reasons for several years.
I have different VM using XP too because still have old 16bit software that won't run on x64 Windows. That way runs w/o rebooting.

"Easy" upgrade is Ghost to new HD/SSD and upgrade the copy to 10. this way have old copy if 10 doesn't work.
or
Ghost the HD to a File on another machine before upgrading. (Ghost to File(s) eat a lot of space, worse if have video etc. on the disk.) Most Free and many Paid Ghost clones don't support this feature.
Use "USB upgrade method" to get a free upgrade.

Note: Currently Don't connect Net port if you want local account only. Wait until upgrade is done for net access.

------------------
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave

I am prompted to promote the power of the preeminent Penguin.


One OS to play them all.

[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 01-22-2020).]