Get Back Windows Media Player 12 Mini Toolbar on Windows 7 Taskbar

By Sandip Dedhia on January 9, 2010
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Windows Media Player 12 Logo
Those long time Windows Media Player 11 users might know about Mini toolbar which appears on taskbar when you minimize your Windows Media Player. The WMP 11 mini toolbar is very helpful when you are just listening to songs and want distraction free desktop.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed mini toolbar from Windows Media Player 12 which comes as default on windows 7. Many users seeking way to get back mini toolbar on WMP 12 for those here is excellent finding from Winmatrix user Justin buser.

Justin Buser has got the workaround to get back mini toolbar on Windows 7 and this is definitely better solution over downgrading to Windows Media Player 11. Follow simple steps to get back WMP 12 mini toolbar on Windows 7.

Get Back Mini Toolbar of Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7

1. Obtain a copy of C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll from a computer with WMP11 on it (for the same OS Architecture, i.e. 32/64 bit)

Download link  for 64bit version of wmpband.dll is here.

Download link  for 32bit version of wmpband.dll is here.

2. Place the file in the C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\ directory on the computer with Windows 7 / WMP12

3. Stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing service

4. Run a command prompt AS ADMINISTRATOR & execute the following command:

regsvr32 “c:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll”

5. Restart the Windows Media Player Network Sharing service

6. Run Windows Media Player 12 and minimize it

7. Right click on the Taskbar -> toolbars and select Windows Media Player from list

Activate WMP 12 Toolbar on Taskbar

8. You may get following error message box click on yet and continue

Windows Media Player 12 Toolbar Error Message

That’s it, if you have any problems try performing the preceding steps after a clean reboot and before running windows media player.

Windows Media Player 12 with Mini Toolbar

WMP 12 Mini Toolbar on Windows 7

Those long time Windows Media Player 11 users might know about Mini toolbar which appears on taskbar when you minimize your Windows Media Player. The WMP 11 mini toolbar is very helpful when you are just listening to songs and want distraction free desktop.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed mini toolbar from Windows Media Player 12 which comes as default on windows 7. Many users seeking way to get back mini toolbar on WMP 12 for those here is excellent finding from Winmatrix user Justin buser.

Justin Buser has got the workaround to get back mini toolbar on Windows 7 ad this is definitely better solution over downgrading to Windows Media Player 12. Follow simple steps to get back WMP 12 mini toolbar on Windows 7.

Get Back Mini Toolbar of Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7

1. Obtain a copy of C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll from a computer with WMP11 on it (for the same OS Architecture, i.e. 32/64 bit)

Download link the 64bit version of wmpband.dll is here.

(If you have 32-bit wmpband.dll let us know)

2. Place the file in the C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\ directory on the computer with Windows 7 / WMP12

3. Stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing service

4. Run a command prompt AS ADMINISTRATOR & execute the following command:

regsvr32 “c:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll”

5. Restart the Windows Media Player Network Sharing service

6. Run Windows Media Player 12 and minimize it

7. Right click on the toolbar -> toolbars and select Windows Media Player

That’s it, if you have any problems try performing the preceding steps after a clean reboot and before running windows media player.

Posted in , | Tagged , , , | 20 Responses
Sandip Dedhia

Sandip Dedhia

Sandip Dedhia is the founder of Blogsdna.com, he loves to write on technology, gadgets & web services. At Blogsdna you can read his Windows & freeware software related articles. He is on twitter too @sandipnd View author profile

  • Pingback: How To Get Back Windows Media Player Taskbar Toolbar in Windows 7

  • Anonymous

    I just tried this fix and it worked perfectly on Win7 x64.

  • Tasos

    Thanks! Works on my Windows 7 x64!

  • Priit

    one problem, media player 12,
    http://www.upload.ee/image/407199/pilt.jpg

  • http://Peddle T

    Exact same problem as Tasos above, anyone know why?

    Tom

  • http://www.khaeotica.com Julius

    Yes, it’s because of the way the path for the RUN command is written, the same thing happened to me on a 32-bit laptop, so instead using the one provided, try this one:

    regsvr32 “c:\program files\windows media player\wmpband.dll”

    As you may notice, there is no Caps letters in it and the signs for “” are different than the ones presented in the tutorial above.

    Btw, if you’ll decide at one point to reverse the process, try to execute the following in the RUN admin command prompt (also as ADMINISTRATOR):

    regsvr32 “c:\program files\windows media player\wmpband.dll” /u

    This will unregister the dll and then you can delete it.

  • http://www.khaeotica.com Julius

    Unfortunately, when playing videos/movies the mini toolbar doesn’t work properly, as I’m experiencing the same problem on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines that runs on Windows 7 with Windows Media Player 12. The mini video and visualization window doesn’t display any images and it remains completely blank, only the buttons function ok and the sound can be heard. But there is no image from the movie that is played in WMP 12 and also when you want to restore it from the toolbar with the main big window on desktop, it remains blank as well with only the sound running… Does anyone know what might be the problem and how it can be solved? Thanx in advance for any help!

  • Dilanasanga X

    Thanks Julius ,It really worked

  • Jesse

    thanks
    this is awesome

  • Lvngscrfc

    I initially had the same problem as you Pritt. The reason for this was I am on a 64-bit machine and my media player is the x86 folder. So I needed to change the path to C:Program Files (x86)Windows Media Playerwmpband/dll

    Also I’m still having the same issue as you Julius where my screen is blank while playing a video, if you figured out a way around this, I’d love to know how. The mini video on the toolbar was my favorite part of the it :/

  • Napakerr

    To keep from having to reenable the toolbar every time I reboot, I run this from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun:

    @echo off

    REM The Media Player toolbar will only instantiate if enabled while wmplayer.exe is minimized.
    REM Start Media Player minimized and then restart the taskbar to enable the toolbar.

    ECHO.
    ECHO Initializing the Media Player toolbar.
    ECHO Please wait…

    tasklist /FI “IMAGENAME eq wmplayer.exe” 2>NUL | find /I /N “wmplayer.exe”>NUL
    if “%ERRORLEVEL%”==”0″ (
    REM Windows Media Player is already running, so don’t start it again or it won’t minimize.
    GOTO _SKIP_INIT
    )

    REM Start Media Player minimized.
    REM Note that minimization will ONLY work the first time Media Player is started.
    START “WM Player” /D “%ProgramFiles%Windows Media Player” /MIN wmplayer.exe
    REM Wait for Media Player to minimize.
    CHOICE /T 22 /C y /D y >NUL

    :_SKIP_INIT
    REM Restart the taskbar to enable the Media Player toolbar.
    Taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
    CHOICE /T 1 /C y /D y >NUL
    START “Explorer” explorer.exe

    Anyone have a better idea?

  • HMZ

    can’t thank you enough

  • Techwhohateswindows7

    It didn’t work for me, I h8 windows 7 very much, I like XP because it works better

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jordy-Suos/541062331 Jordy Suos

    Great solution!

  • Tytyt

    Work fine with :
    regsvr32 “c:program files (x86)windows media playerwmpband.dll”

  • Guest3333 :P

    Ok everyone who is having trouble with the error service module or something failed to load Run:
    CMD as administrator
    Then type “cd..” without ”
    then cd.. again
    now type cd Program Files
    then type cd Windows Media Player
    Then type regsvr32 wmpband.dll

  • Guest1212

    Thanks alot, I’ve tried alot of the other command prompts but they didn’t work for me. Yours did :) The only difference I changed is replacing
    cd Program Files
    with
    cd Program Files (x86)

  • Robert_malouin

    thanks I Was getting frustrated because i couldn’t find how to enable the toolbar(it was because it was Not There) And this fix made me completely happy. Thanx

  • Guest_Jollie

    help. I tried everything here. Still this message appears:

    The module “c: program fileswindows media playerwmpband.dll” may not compatible with an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of regsvr32.exe

    PLEASE HELP ME. I getting out of patience here…

  • Anonymous

    thank you so much.. :)

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