Windows Media Player 12 - Enable Taskbar Toolbar

Brink · 30 Dec 2014

ElLoboSolitario said:

I tried this for Win 7 x64 Home Premium SP1 and nothing happened. Furthermore I get this error message when I attempt to call Microsoft's server for album information:

Hello ElLobo, and welcome to Seven Forums. :)

I'm sorry to hear that you may have had trouble with this.

As a test, use the commands below at step 5 instead to unregister the wmpband.dll file to see if that stops the error you posted. This will undo the tutorial. If it doesn't help, then this was not responsible, and something else is causing it that we'll need to track down.

net stop WMPNetworkSvc

regsvr32 /u "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll"

net start WMPNetworkSvc

ElLoboSolitario · 01 Jan 2015

Yep, it was the Media Player Tool bar .dll that was interfering with calls to Microsoft's server for album info. As soon as I unregistered it, everything was back to normal. Not sure if this has any bearing on how the trick works, but my set up is Win 7 x64 premium edition INCLUDING Media Center. I depend on MC as the foundation for Media Browser, which is a an XML browser for my movies/television shows/concerts collection. Would have been nice to restore the tool bar, but considering I can also manipulate Media Player via a multimedia keyboard or a Soundgraph remote control, I'm really not sacrificing any functionality. Thanks again for the tip.

Brink · 01 Jan 2015

I'll have to do some more testing, but it may be an update that caused it to no longer work.

sheru · 25 May 2015

hi there brink, hope u get this message, i am a total beginner in all this, i followed the steps you have mentioned until i get to the command prompt steps, and when i press enter to the first command, i get an access is denied message, where as i am running as the administrator, there are no other accounts.
any ideas or other way round this?
all i want is to be able to skip tracks easily whilst im working as my WMP will be visible in the task bar like the old windows use to do.

many thanks in advance for any help or support u can provide, and thumbs up for the tutorial u have posted already.

Brink · 25 May 2015

Hello Sheru, and welcome to Seven Forums. :)

It sounds like you didn't open an elevated command prompt (right click on cmd.exe file and click on "Run as administrator").

sheru · 25 May 2015

thank you very much for the warm welcome

Thank god i mentioned that i am a total beginner at this, because i didnt have clue what was meant by elevated command, i had just opened command prompt, and u hit the nail straight on the head!

its working A class now, thank you ever so much!!

and i am really greatful for your quick response, i honestly thought no one would reply!

stay cool and even more cool brink! thanks!

Brink · 25 May 2015

You're most welcome Sheru. I'm happy to hear that you got it working now. :)

mapcec · 09 Sep 2017

Thank you a lot Brink, it works but I need help to resize it because the bar is to small, can you help me? (picture attached).

Brink · 09 Sep 2017

Hello mapcec, and welcome to Seven Forums. :)

I'm afraid that there's really no way to resize it.

You could increase your DPI scaling level to make everything appear larger though.

DPI Display Size Settings - Change - Windows 7 Help Forums

Collin2011 · 19 Sep 2017

Me again Brink, funny thing. I got a hold of a 7 Ultimate key and I am dual-booting Windows 10 and 7. This worked like a charm in 7. Was an ultimate PITA for Windows 10 had to find an alternate method there.

Windows Media Player 12 - Enable Taskbar Toolbar

WMP Toolbar