It has been a while since I have been able to write anything Windows Media Center related, but today’s post is not exactly good news.

Microsoft have announced (via a change to the support documents) that they are discontinuing the metadata service for Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player in Windows 7. The metadata service enabled you to view title, genre and artist info on music files, and for movies and TV files it gives you director, actors, cover art and TV guide. Existing metadata will still be available but Windows will not pull down data on new content.

This applies to Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

Going forward, you may be unable to view information (metadata) such as the title, genre, and artist for songs, and the director, actors, cover art, and TV guide for movies in Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. After looking at customer feedback and usage data, Microsoft decided to discontinue this service. This means that new metadata won’t be updated on media players that are installed on your Windows device. However, any information that’s already been downloaded will still be available.

via

Thanks to Richard for the tip

5 thoughts on “Windows Media Player & Windows Media Center to lose metadata support”
  1. Hi Ian. I have W7 MCE and still happy with its simple function. So we still get the basic guide data so we can record programs? Do you know when this will stop and will it stop with W7 support next January?

  2. I’m still getting it,
    can’t find any non subscription survives like it. Tried a few alternatives but nothing records and distributes Like it.
    Is there any way known to keep it working if Microsoft don’t provide the EPG?

  3. Yes. It used to be 14 days but is only 7 now. All the functions like series record work perfectly as long as your remember that sometimes you need to set say NCIS and NEW NCIS because theye are sometimes different each alternate week.
    Really an almost perfect product.

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