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About Conversion Plug-ins

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[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 It has been superseded by MediaPlayer.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.]

You can create a Windows Media Player plug-in to convert digital media files that are created using technologies not provided by Microsoft, into Advanced Systems Format (ASF).

Conversion plug-ins are Component Object Model (COM) objects that are packaged and distributed as executable (.exe) files. Windows Media Player instantiates conversion plug-ins to convert third-party digital media formats in the following scenarios:

  • Digital media content is copied to the computer from a portable device.
  • Digital media content is added to the library by using IWMPMediaCollection::add.
  • Digital media content is added to the library by using the search feature of Windows Media Player.
  • Digital media content is added to the library by the folder monitoring feature of Windows Media Player.
  • Digital media content is added to the sync list when the user drags and drops a file.

After Windows Media Player creates an instance of a conversion plug-in, the plug-in must convert the supplied file to ASF or WMA and add relevant metadata. (Do not use the conversion plug-in to transcode the file.) The plug-in must then copy the converted file to the specified folder and return the path to the new file to Windows Media Player.

Conversion plug-ins must implement the IWMPConvert interface. See Conversion Plug-ins Programming Reference.

About the Conversion Process

Adding Metadata to Converted Files

Windows Media Player Conversion Plug-ins