How to restore stripped out Windows Media Player feature without re-install

[Madz]

Hey Guys - really need some help. I've used the excellent Winkit (component removal option) to strip windows media player out of Windows 7. I always do this for my own disks. About 6 months ago I used my install media to set up a friends PC, forgetting I'd customised it. He now wants media player - it's not available in the turn features on/off obviously - is there any way I can install this on his PC without him having to reinstall windows from scratch??

Thanks

Mick

Edited November 29, 2012 by Madz

[ricktendo]

Maybe a repair install or the same method thats used to add dotNET 3 to Windows 8

[Madz]

Hi - thanks, really appreciate the suggestions - I've been busy trying them and I thought you were onto something there with the dotNET 3 method .. here's what happened:

1) Repair Install from Original media over my custom install - it wouldn't let me do this as I've moved my user profiles off onto drive D. How that stops a repair install i have no idea.

2) Adding through DISM to online system - unfortunately windows 7 doesn't support the new DISM parameter /source and I think this is kind of critical as I need to point at a different image that has that feature still in it (i mounted the standard Windows Ultimate image off the CD and was trying to point there). I even tried downloading the Win8 ADK and using that DISM exe but it seems to detect it's running on Win7 and not support the extra options.

3) I tried downloading the Media Feature Pack designed for the N versions of windows - thinking that'd be an easy way out but of course it checks and says Unable to install for this windows version. So I tried manually expanding the MSU file, and then using DSIM (also tried pkgmgr) to add the included Windows6.1-KB968211-x64-RefreshPkg.cab file as a package to my online system and although that worked, there's no "Features" exposed in the package so I couldn't seem to enable anything after having installed it. I tried using pkgmgr with the Windows6.1-KB968211-x64-RefreshPkg.xml file as an unattended install and that complained of the same issue. Inside the MSU there was also a WSUSSCAN.cab file so maybe it has all the install smarts, I don't know.

I'm really out of my depth here - but it's so frustrating - I'm sure there must be an easy way to put back the Media Player features/package I trimmed out of the install. To be honest I don't even know exactly what I removed - I gather WindowsMediaPlayer is a "feature" in the Windows Foundation Package so perhaps I haven't removed a whole package at all, and just somehow need to add part of it back or substitute it for the original? but if I compare the files in winsxs I can see I missing quite a few media player things - are these all packages in there? I'm not sure....

Any other ideas anyone? Normally I wouldn't give 2c for Windows Media Player (hence why I strip it out) but v12 is actually half decent and my friend who's install I'm trying to fix is visually impaired and WMP12 is the only PC based DLNA control point (the new "Play To" feature) that has decent screen reading support that I know of - there's not many PC control points around and most are very graphic oriented with all the album art etc that they don't work well with screen readers and keyboard navigation. Media servers and control points are a massive win for the visually impaired - he's an audiophile and playing a CD on his HIFI system currently involves loading disc after disc until he finds the one he wants - with this he'll be able to have them all in FLAC and just search and play ... that's what I'm trying to get him set up with anyway....

Appreciate any help

Cheers

Mick

[Eric666]

Hi,

I was kind of having the same problem with my Windows 7 x64. It was not even trimmed, but by tweaking and tooling somehow I had indeed all features including WMP and DotNet 3.5 unavailable. I tried every normal repair method using Windows Update, standalone versions of DotNet and indeed the N-versions of WMP but to no avail. When running KUC it appeared I had so much bad packages, that windows seemed FUBAR. Komm, the author of the KUC tool suggested that in my case a bad SP1 install might be the culprit, so I even ended up trying to uninstall SP1 but also there things went pear-shaped. Finally I ended up doing a new clean install on the machine and only then all problems were solved.

Assuming you have been using W7 SP1 as a source with Winkit, SP1 uninstall would not be an option in your case. Still you might use KUC for inspecting your friends' system. Maybe it is a case of a few bad packages that can be removed and re-installed using DISM. KUC produces a series of batch files to do exactly that.

HTH and regards, Eric666

[Madz]

Yeah I think all packages were installed fine - it's just that winkit did a very complete job of removing WMP in the first place Anyway I bit the bullet on the weekend and reinstalled windows..... still wouldn't mind finding a solution though as I have the same problem with my install and I might want to run wmp sometime - I've got way to much stuff setup on to consider resinstalling an option

[yogurt]

Just my opinion, but it think that in the interest of time it would be much more productive to do a new integration from a fresh untouched source to restore WMP. It is much quicker to rebuild your image than it would be to re-invent Win Toolkit. I am confident that WTK will eventually be able to restore WMP as you suggest, just not in this version . Perhaps a request for this feature would prompt the developer to implement such a feature in future releases of WTK.

Edited December 13, 2012 by dotfusion

[Legolash2o]

Probably quicker and better to start with a new image. Also VLC is so much better

[yogurt]

Media Player Classic HC is pretty good to. I Also use VLC.

[Madz]

Yeah use them both too have in the past always preferred them to WMP - the play to feature didnt seem that great in vlc - it's the dlna control point I mainly want... plus needs to be screen readable M$ spend more R&D on that sort of thing...

[Legolash2o]

You could mount it with Win Toolkit and use dism to restore it. After all, it's probably marked as 'Uninstall Pending'. Then save the image.

[Madz]

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I bought an SSD though so bit the bullet and did a fresh install.....  cheers

[ElmerBeFuddled]

I've always used Media Monkey in a Media Player skin to annoy the neighbours with my taste in Northern Soul. For vids etc. I use MPC.

I went off WMP years ago as it seemed to be trying to take over my files without having the common decency to ask me first!! (but it looks nice, hence the skin for MM)

Edited December 19, 2012 by ElmerBeFuddled