Media player is a term typically used to describe computer software for playing back multimedia files. Most software media players support an array of media formats, including both audio and video files.
Some media players focus only on audio or video and are known as audio players and video players respectively. The producers of these players usually focus on providing a better user experience as they are specifically tailored toward the media type.
Microsoft Windows comes with pre-loaded Windows Media Player. The latest is Windows Media Player 11, which is bundled with Windows Vista, and available as a download for Windows XP SP2. Mac OS X comes pre-loaded with Quicktime Player for playing Quicktime movies and iTunes for playing a variety of media formats. Winamp only runs on Windows but supports Apple iPods and other portables like Creative's Zen while also supporting audio and video playback. Linux distributions come pre-loaded with various media players including VLC, MPlayer, xine, and Totem.
Media Player was a media player originally included in Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions and a slightly updated version was included with Windows 3.1x. Media Player received a facelift with Video for Windows, with an OLE2 version provided with the runtime software. This version forms the basis for the 32-bit version included with Windows 95 and Windows NT.
From Windows 95 onwards, Media Player took the same version number as Windows itself. Thus in the original version of Windows 95 it reports itself as 4.00.950, in Windows 2000 it is 5.0.* and in Windows XP it is version 5.1.*, where * refers to the build number.
As of Windows 98, Media Player was rendered obsolete, Windows Media Player being the replacement. Media Player is still included in Windows XP; however, it is no longer included as of Windows Vista.
