How to Add FLAC Support to Libraries / Windows Media Player on Windows 7

By default, Windows Media Player doesn't support the FLAC codec. This can be quite annoying, especially if your like me and most of your "favorite" albums are actually in FLAC format! This short 'How To' will guide you through the steps needed to successfully get FLAC albums showing up in your library inside Windows Media Player, specifically tailored for the soon to be released Windows 7.

1. Download Shark007's Windows 7 Codec Application here. Install it

2. If you're using Win 7 64bit then you will also have to download and install the x64 Components package from here. Install it.

3. As a test, you should try playing one of your FLAC files from a Windows Explorer window to make sure the codecs installed correctly.

4. Next you will have to install WMP Tag Support Extender. It does what it says on the tin, extends to tag support that the WMP library is able to use. You can download it from here. Install it.

5. If you've already had your music library indexed, then you will have to delete the database which forces a re-index (so all your FLAC files can be indexed). To do this navigate to the following folder and deleting all the .wmdb files:

C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player

// Replacing "User" with your Username

If you get an error that you can't delete one of them because of the "Sharing Service" then click Start > Run and enter services.msc and press enter. Find "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" and right click and click stop, then delete the .wmdb files. (After doing this you can restart the service, or it will restart on your next boot)

6. After doing all these steps, the next time you start Windows Media Player it should have no library data and will start rescanning all your files again (including your FLACs!).

Seeing as I don't have a comment system here at the moment, any suggestions or moans should be directed to domz [at] domz.co.uk

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Comments
how, to, windows 7, windows, media, player, libraries, flac, codec,
Posted by DomZ on 14/08/2009 at 19:00 pm