Windows 7: Add to "Play to" menu

When I right-click on a WMV or MP3 and a few other formats I get the "Play to" option in the context menu.
Is there a way to add other files types to do that? It seems only the file types that you could normally play with Windows without having to install anything else.



I want to add MP4 and some others. My TV supports them so that's not an issue.

Are the file types currently associated with WMP? If you double click them, do they open in WMP? Do you have another media player they might be associated with? When I right click a video file, I have them associated with MPC, so I get an option to Play with MPC.

Try this, right click a mp4 file, chose open with, then choose default program. Associate with WMP and see if the Play option doesn't now appear on right click of mp4 files. If so, repeat for other file types.

A Guy

I was actually going to suggest the same thing A Guy has.

Then I noticed my play menus for MP4's are as like in this snip.

I have my default player set as Nero Showtime (open with) as you can see here as well.

But I also have the option to play the file with Zune, from the menu.


Windows should support MP4 by default.
But it looks to me as if yours may not actually be recognizing the file as a video, for whatever reason.

MP4 is simply a container to hold audio and video.
So, depending what video/audio codec is actually inside the container may perhaps be the issue?

If so, something like FFDshow may be needed for Windows to recognize it as a video file.

Not Play. Play to.
Example: notice where it says Play to then TV

I dont have that "play to" option in my context menu ; probably an inbuilt TV is needed for this , or multiple monitors ?

Other file types means avi, mkv , ogg etc ? If you associate that file type with your next play to option (as I dont have that option, I dont know how to do it . I guess you know ) and then bring it back to the default, the next option will be added to the context menu rightly .

Again I guess, members with multiple monitors may help you properly in this issue .

Hmmm, maybe a WMC thing? I don't use WMC myself. A Guy

Well since all of the WMV files are associated with TheKMPlayer now instead of WMP, along with AVI, MPG and well everything but MP3 and WAV (odd story, don't ask), and yet those still have the "Play to" option.

And yes I know it's TV is needed, actually anything that connect to a DLNA server. In my case I have a Samsung LN40C550 TV and a Samsung HT-C6500 blu-ray HTS.
And multi-monitors has nothing to do with it. It's not playing to a directly connected display/device. It's a network connected device.

Not sure if anything here helps or not, not a lot of info about play to out there I could see.

Using the Play To feature to stream media

A Guy

Yep, read it already. The problem isn't that as much as the info isn't out there it's that using a search term as "Play to" (even with quotes) confuses search engines because the words are too common.