Thanks, Mike. Interesting. I have done many demonstrations of WMP and MCE and
the first time someone tries to rewind back to hear a great drum fill again,
for instance, I get appalled looks when I tell them "You can't."

Are you saying that there are 3rd party products that play back
Microsoft-formatted (or any kind of) music files that allow rewind? If so,
can you point me to one? Thanks again.

"Mike Williams" wrote:

> Eboy wrote:
> > Thanks for the welcome, Zach, and the response. Before posting I did an
> > exhaustive search for why rewind capability is missing from WMP (and MCE)
> > including your website (which talks about rewinding ASF files but not music
> > files). I also contacted Microsoft support and was given a similar answer:
> > "Not supported." No details, no explanation. Suffice it to say, I tried to do
> > my due diligence before posting to this newsgroup.
> >
> > The ability to rewind while listening to digital music is a function which
> > we have all taken for granted since component CD players came out 20 years
> > ago. I am among an ever-growing population of digital music enthusiasts
> > ripping their entire collections to hard disk either using WMP or MCE. We are
> > all baffled that firstly, the rewind function is missing
>
> I have 40000+ tracks ripped from my collection, and I'm not baffled, and
> hadn't even thought about it to today.
>
> and secondly, that
> > more people aren't talking about it. Yes, you can drag the slider back to a
> > previous point in a track but you can only do so by using a mouse -- you
> > cannot do so from a hot key -- therefore, most importantly, neither from a
> > remote control!
>
> In the cases where Rewind is supported, the hotkeys Alt+P+R or
> Ctl+Shift+B are available (which can be read off the WMP menu).
>
> > So, for all of us holding back on ripping our music collections using
> > Microsoft products (either WMP or MCE) until we understand this rewind issue,
> > I ask again: *why* is rewind missing. It would help us to know *why* the
> > function is not supported -- not just that it is not supported.
>
> You can rip using Microsoft products, but you may want to choose a
> different playback product (of which there are many free products to
> choose from). For my money, there are dozens of more pressing issues to
> fix or add before this.
>