I'm an avid user of Windows Media Player, so when the beta was rumored to be available on Monday, I was checking for it regularly. When it was finally released on Wednesday, I downloaded it and installed it immediately. Overall, I like the new UI, but there are a few features that used to be there that apparently aren't under a normal usage pattern.

Why do I say that? Well, most of the features I am missing have to do with deleting media from my machine. Now, I have a feeling that doing that is outside of the average user's use case. I do it on a regular basis because I use WMP to listen to podcasts, and once I'm done with 99% of them, they get trashed. No point in keeping them around after I got what I wanted out of them, right?

But now, that's much harder to do. You can't delete from the "Now Playing" screen, which is understandable if you're working with a library of music or programming that you generally want to keep around - but I don't. So, I have to switch back to the Library tab, and then go find it in the library to delete it - and yes, from the Now Playing menu, you can get to it easily, but it's still more steps than before.

On top of that, I have a dynamic playlist set up to find all files downloaded by FeedDemon, and I used to be able to delete directly from there too, but not anymore. Luckily, most of them appear under the "Recently Added" list, and you can delete from there.

Other than that, it's pretty nice. I do like the updated mini-player look in the task bar (which I didn't realize was updated at first - you don't see it until you reboot):

I don't think it adds any new functionality, but it's pretty, as is the whole new UI.

Overall, it's impressive. Harder to delete, but still, an improvement over v10. Still no podcasting support though, and that's a disappointment, really.

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