I need windows media player for a windows app. However they require a windows verification ID for downloading for their web site. I can't get the current installation package. Is there another location that I can download it from? I am using the most up to date wine which in it's wine tricks it doesn't have WMP9 in it.
Ubuntu – How to install Windows Media Player
winewinetricks
Related Solutions
This is a Half-Answer. I say half since you will not be able to visualize the theme of WMP11 but you will be able to play music and videos (Videos in this case only in fullcreen). If this is something you think solves the problem then accept, if not (Most likely will not since it is a weird way of installing it) then feel free to comment on it.
(Tested on my PC a laptop and in a last sorry excuse for PC just to make sure the procedure can repeat itself)
Steps to install Windows Media Player:
Pre-Requesites:
- Have Wine 1.3.33+
- Have winecfg opened all the time since you will be using it a lot.
- Configure winecfg in the video tab to a virtual window. In my case I set this at 1024x768.
- Configure winecfg to use Windows 2003
- No need to configure any libraries
- Pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and let yourself be touched by his noodly appendage
After all that is made (I also have PlayOnLinux installed. I mention it just in case POL installed something in Wine and I did not notice or didn't tell me about it ^^) we can proceed with WMP11:
- Download the WMP11 version for Windows XP (I only tested this one. It is about 25MB)
- Having winecfg already opened and configure to emulate a virtual desktop of at least 1024x768 (So to not use fullscreen) open a terminal in Ubuntu (Outside wine) and go where the WMP11 executable is.
- Run
wine wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exewhere the downloaded installer is. At this point winecfg should be configure in Windows 2003 mode. You will get the welcome screen, click on validate and wait for it. In Windows 2003 mode it will skip validation and go to the EULA. DO NOT ACCEPT THE EULA YET!. - Go to the winecfg window (which both should be sharing, winecfg and WMP11) and change the system from Windows 2003 to XP. Save it but don't close winecfg yet.
- Continue with the installation of WMP11.
- You have a chance of finishing the installation with no problem, but if it hangs (Which probably will) in 25%, 50%, 75% do not worry. Just go to the terminal that you used wine to execute wmp11 and press CTRL+C. After that, just in case type
wineserver -kto kill any remaining wine related processes. - Repeat steps 3 through 5 until the installation finishes completely remembering that to start WMP11 you need to have winecfg configured to Windows 2003 and after the validation, change it back to Windows XP to continue the installation.
- Assuming you got to the end of the installation it will ALWAYS say "You have failed!. The installation went wrong and did not survive. Kitties will die". Do not worry about the "did not complete part" at the end of the installation. It actually finished. At least looking from a functionality perspective.
- Go to the WMP11 folder inside the wine directory where the installer "installed" the WMP folder. Setup winecfg for Windows XP and run
wmplayer.exe(You can run it from Nautilus). In my case it is in/home/cyrex/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Windows Media Player. Remember to not close winecfg since we are not done yet with it. WMP11 will open but it will be horrible as seen here:
Press Enter 4 or 5 times to accept something that you can not see. I do not remember how many. Just do 5 and that should be enough.
Again, close WMP11. run
wineserver -kjust to make sure.- Change winecfg from Windows XP to Windows 7.
Open
wmplayer.exeagain. This time you should see a little bit more stuff like here:
And one last time, close WMP11. run
wineserver -kand change winecfg from Windows 7 to FINALLY Windows XP where it will remain. NOW you can close winecfg.
That is all. The option to run WMP11 can be found in the Open With option when right clicking in Nautilus, as seen here:
You can hear music, add mp3 lists and hear all songs from the list as shown here:
Lastly you CAN see a movie but you need to make it fullscreen to see it. Just press ALT+ENTER for fullscreen. The menu below while fullscreen will not work, instead just right click the video and the context menu should help. As shown here:
The minimum requirements on the games website are:
- Minimum OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2.
- DirectX 10
I remember that there was such a package for Windows Media Player 10 (the last version for XP) which basically added playback functionality for newer formats, but I'm not sure if that will solve your problem. You are probably just misguided by the installers requirement for this platform and how the target OS or Wine interprets it to satisfy this dependency (play video similar H.264 with Windows Media, I assume).
Since you trick the installer with Wine, make sure that your Wine configuration is set to correctly mimic at least Windows Vista and try to install Windows Media Player 11. WMP10 is the latest version PlayOnLinux and Winetricks seem to support and WMP12 is available since Windows 7, but might be even trickier to install than WMP11.
This is the mess you get, when you don't use the actual target platform but another implementation that tries to mimic it with best effort. A solution to this problem would be implement the functionality that results in this dependency by using another software component like gstreamer (and probably replace the DirectX 10 dependency), that would make it more interoperable or even a good Linux port. However that was not the intention of the game designers or staff responsible for the "PC port". The intention obviously was to provide the best experience and performance on Windows without researching what the best cross-platform solution to video playback is, and I can't blame them.
Best Answer
I agree with a lot of other people that you can play a lot of formats without Windows Media Player but if you still want it, you can always try downloading PlayOnLinux
This application isn't just for games but also for media, internet and many other applications that run on Windows that you would like to use on Linux. When you want to download it, go here, select Ubuntu and follow the instructions on how to place the repo onto your computer. The installation of PlayOnLinux did take some time so be sure you can leave your computer on for a long period of time.
Once the installation is complete, you will be be able to see PlayOnLinux in the "Games" category. When you execute the application, you will be asked some additional questions to complete the setup of PlayOnLinux. Once complete, you will be able to add Windows Media Player from the INSTALL button. I attached a screenshot to this post to see what the final result should be.