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About Windows Media Metafiles

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[The feature associated with this page, Windows Media Player SDK, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer. MediaPlayer has been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer instead of Windows Media Player SDK, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

Microsoft Windows Media metafiles are text files that provide information about a file stream and its presentation. Windows Media metafiles are based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) syntax and can be encoded in ANSI or UNICODE (UTF-8) format. They are made up of various elements with their associated tags and attributes. Each element in a Windows Media metafile defines a particular setting or action in Windows Media Player. Some elements must be located in a specific position in the file relative to other elements. Some elements have required tags and attributes that must be defined in the Windows Media metafile.

Windows Media Download packages provide a way to combine Windows Media Player borders, playlist information, and multimedia content into a single downloadable file.

The following sections provide conceptual information about Windows Media metafile playlists and Windows Media Download packages.

Section Description
Windows Media Metafiles Overview Describes Windows Media metafiles, why you need them, and how to use them.
Windows Media Download Packages (deprecated) Describes Windows Media Download packages, why you need them, and how to use them.

 

Windows Media Metafiles