Creating the Windows Media Player Control Programmatically

[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 It has been superseded by MediaPlayer.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.]

When you add the Windows Media Player control to a form from the Toolbox, an object of the class AxWMPLib.AxWindowsMediaPlayer is created. This wrapper class gives the Player all the functionality of an ActiveX control, including access to UI properties such as Location and Size.

If you do not require the properties exposed by AxWindowsMediaPlayer, or if your application does not have a graphical user interface, you can create a Player control programmatically. In this case, you create an object of the WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer class.

To create the Windows Media Player control programmatically, you must first add a reference to wmp.dll, which is found in the \Windows\system32 folder. Adding this reference creates WMPLib.dll in your project folder, and a reference to WMPLib appears in Solution Explorer.

The following example code, part of a Form1 class, shows how to create a Player object and play a file. When playback ends, or if the file cannot be played, the form is closed.

Dim WithEvents Player As WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer

Private Sub PlayFile(ByVal url As String)
    Player = New WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer
    Player.URL = url
    Player.controls.play()
End Sub

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
                       Handles MyBase.Load
    ' TODO  Insert a valid path in the line below.
    PlayFile("c:\media\myaudio.wma")
End Sub

Private Sub Player_MediaError(ByVal pMediaObject As Object) _
                              Handles Player.MediaError
    MessageBox.Show("Cannot play media file.")
    Me.Close()
End Sub

Private Sub Player_PlayStateChange(ByVal NewState As Integer) _
                                   Handles Player.PlayStateChange
    If NewState = WMPLib.WMPPlayState.wmppsStopped Then
        Me.Close()
    End If
End Sub

WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer Player;

private void PlayFile(String url)
{
    Player = new WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer();
    Player.PlayStateChange += 
        new WMPLib._WMPOCXEvents_PlayStateChangeEventHandler(Player_PlayStateChange);
    Player.MediaError += 
        new WMPLib._WMPOCXEvents_MediaErrorEventHandler(Player_MediaError);
    Player.URL = url;
    Player.controls.play();
}

private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    // TODO  Insert a valid path in the line below.
    PlayFile(@"c:\myaudio.wma");
}

private void Player_PlayStateChange(int NewState)
{
    if ((WMPLib.WMPPlayState)NewState == WMPLib.WMPPlayState.wmppsStopped)
    {
        this.Close();
    }
}

private void Player_MediaError(object pMediaObject)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Cannot play media file.");
    this.Close();
}

Related topics

Embedding the Windows Media Player Control in a .NET Framework Solution