I had removed all other media players,including Winamp and VLC, from my system and was using Windows Media Player 10. However, I have changed my mind about Media Player as it hangs sometimes and asks for Indeo codecs and so on which are not available on the Microsoft site. I recently re-downloaded the latest version of WinAmp Pro and I am really impressed with its new and better features especially its ripping and burning capabilities.
I cannot say about Beta version of Media Player as I have not downloaded it thanks to the message I get when I click the ``update Media Player icon'' that my version (10) is up-to-date.

I've downloaded WMP 11, and except for a few scrolling bugs, havent had any problems so far. Of course, I haven't used it that often. But I like the new look of 11 and the way it sorts things. Also changing the song/artist information seems alot easier than it was in WMP 10. It took me forever to change things before. I'll have to look at it in more detail, but so far, I like it.

I've tried Winamp, and except for the visualizations, I don't like it any better than WMP. Maybe it's because its because I'm so used to WMP, but Winamp just confuses me.

VLC is now a standby on any computer i put software on. it's so simple to just have to use the one player for almsot anything, and not have to worry that you'll be stuck without the codec you need. case in point: i was giving a presentation at a seminar, and my laptop adapter was burned out from a power surge, so i had 4 other laptops to use. 3 of them didn't have the codec i needed to use (latest Xvid) one had divx, and the others only had media player. luckily the 4th one had vlc, and i was able to show the clip, but it was a near disaster. But other than codecs, media player is nice, and whether you use the big skin, which looks cool, or a smaller one, which doesn't take much memory, it's easy and simple to use, as well as looking cool. --which is missing from every other WMP. Winamp is STILL more powerful for audio files, and i don't think it's too complicated, unless you're using a modern abstract skin. just use the basic. Here's what i think about iTunes: it sucks. fine if you've got an ipod and have to have it to transfer stuff, but it's got its system processes it starts and slows down the computer.

Windows Media Player 11 is just another one in the series. I can see nothing wrong with it, but still cant see the difference between 10 and now 11.

Its still pretty good, has some good features and so far has not crashed on me! Thats pretty good. Shame it only runs on XP SP2.

What about JetAudio, lots of options, free base version, nice GUI and some of things I havent seen anywhere else.

yes and it screwed up my windowx XP

First of all, for all you SP2 objectors: [url=Windows XP SP1 Support Ends Tuesday]http://slashdot.org/articles/06/10/10/0032245.shtml[/url]
I really don't know what there is to object to...
And besides, you can't blame Microsoft for wanting to rely on their updates for their newer softwares. That's like asking all mIRC scripters to have their scripts work on mIRC 5.13. What's the point? And I think your (whoever it was that said his machine rejected SP2) computer is having problems with Windows in general, because I don't Microsoft would go around making updates that ruin support for some types of computers. Yeah, you can blame Microsoft for a lot of things, but asking for SP2 is just general industry behavior.

And yeah, I agree with Jeigh. The person that started this thread was asking about WMP11, not the alternatives. And of course there are going to be a million alternatives for every piece of software on earth, but you must admit that for the people who enjoy using WMP, it does its job in a satisfactory manner. I am still with WMP10, even though I don't listen to my music collection with it, but it's great for opening audio files that I don't necessarily want to add to my iTunes library...

Now I'm going to check out VLC.

Wmp looks better, the album info is really nice to look at. It's worth getting, not worth using. It freezes any time I try to load more than one song in. Wimanp is just as bad, I use RealPlayer.

My girlfriend just downloaded Windows Media Player 11 a few days ago. There has been no problem so far it hasn't had any problems that I can tell. I still really don't like the way things are sorted. I have no need to see all the album art when I am looking for the songs I want. To me it is a waste of space. And some of the album art isn't even correct. But still it is pretty easy to navigate around. But overall I would have stuck with Windows Media Player 9. I liked the simplicty of it without all the added crap.

Well, it has been out of beta for a while now. I've been sticking with WMP since v 7 (the one bundled with Windows ME). That was the time, when they really revamped the player. The way it sits on top of the taskbar (WMP taskbar toolbar) comes in real handy, as the entire player doesn't need to be focused for the basic jobs. It has improved album based management, instant search, album info finder and the vista black look, enough to make it my favorite media player. Personally, I don't have any problem with downloading the codecs for out of the block media formats.

It does crash once in a while. But one could attribute that to the growing complexity in the software. And let me tell you, Winamp isn't perfect either. I remember, v 3 not starting at all, on many occasions. Re-installing was the only option back then. The last Winamp I tried was v 5 which was a great improvement to the already impressive Winamp.