tba
Windows Media Player started life as the player in the NetShow suite. NetShow was Microsoft's streaming media services solution. NetShow Player 3.0 became Windows Media Player 5.2, the first version branded WMP. On what seems to be an archived page from the Microsoft site, WMP 5.2 Beta is mentioned together with NetShow 3.0 Services Beta.
Apparently the 1.0 version was named Microsoft NetShow On-Demand Player; 2.0 removed the word "on-demand" and became just "NetShow Player". It replaces NetShow On-Demand Player 1.0, if installed. Both versions can only play ASF files, as the format was made for NetShow. According to the Microsoft site's archived page in 1998, NetShow Player 2.0 supports Windows 95, NT 4, and NT 3.51, but both 1.0 and 2.0 of the 95/NT4 build can also be installed on Windows 98 and Me. The NT 3.51 build states that: "This program requires NT 3.51 Service Pack 5 for full functionality. [snip] Without Service Pack 5, you will be unable to view the NetShow Property Pages. Other functionality should be unaffected." Running the installer on NT 3.5 and 3.1 shows an error dialog that disappears after a split second; I could only read "unexpected error" from it.
As mentioned above, 5.2 is the first version of WMP. However, the full version number it reports is 5.1.52.701.
According to a page on Microsoft's website, both 6.02.902 and 6.1.7.217 are WMP 6.0. However, both BetaWiki and my own 98SE installation has the version nummber 6.01.05.0217. Maybe 6.1.7, as well as WMP 6.0, are typos.
The existence of versions 6.0, 6.1 and 6.4 are well-attested. 6.2 and 6.3 are more of a mystery. 6.2 is mentioned on the WMP download page in April 1999. The next archive in October 1999 already says 6.4. The version number provided for 6.2 in the table linked in the last paragraph matches with the file provided on old-dos.ru dated April 1999. 6.2 probably only existed in beta form. A search for "Windows Media Player 6.2" shows many pages with the claim that WMP 6.2 was shipped with Win98SE, while in fact it was 6.1, not 6.2. The table doesn't mention a 6.3, so probably it doesn't exist, at least for Windows. While the download page in August 2000 mentions a Player 6.3 for Solaris and Macintosh, there was no mention of a Player 6.3 for Windows.
WMP 7 is built into Windows Me, with an icon that fits in nicely with other tools in Windows Me such as Movie Maker. It is a rewrite that added skins and visualizations, which can be downloaded from the Windows Media homepage, among other sites.
While WMP 5.2 and 6.x had a build for systems without IE 4+, WMP 7 stopped providing that and made IE 4+ a requirement.
The WMP 7.0 installer will say the OS is unsupported on Win95 or NT 4.0, but will still install. On Win95 it appears to run without issues, but on NT 4.0 it complains that ICMP.dll is not found when many operations (such as going to fullscreen, or playing a file) is initiated. WMP still appears to function normally if you dismiss the dialog though. Copying the DLL from %windir%\system32 from Win2k to one of the folders listed (I chose the installation directory of WMP) makes the error go away.
BetaWiki claims that Win2k SP2 comes with WMP 7.1, but I installed Win2k from a "Win2k with SP4" installation media and there's still only WMP 6.4.
WMP 8 is notable because it was never released for other OSes than XP SP0~SP1, so no (official) installer was made. With XP SP2, it was replaced by WMP 9 to fix security vulnerabilities. WMP 9 was released for older OSes. As such, the only way to use WMP 8 is to use XP SP0~SP1. The version numbers of WMP 8 is 8.00.00.4477 in XP SP0 and 8.00.00.4487 in XP SP1.
Coinciding with the replacement, "Like Humans Do" by David Byrne, present at %allusersprofile%\Documents\My Music\music.{asx,bmp,wma} is also gone. I assume that it was supposed to be bundled with WMP 8, had it been released for other OSes, like how beck.asf (30-second sample of Beautiful Way by Beck) was bundled with WMP 7.
BetaWiki stated that WMP 8 "can be installed on Windows 2000 natively". But what does "natively" mean here? It has so many different meanings in the computing world, that it by itself doesn't mean anything any more. BetaWiki didn't mention any details either, so that whole section might as well not exist.
Searching on the internet, I found a blog page on SmallVoid, but the download link is dead. The bink.nu link on that page is archived on Wayback Machine, but the download isn't. I also found this BetaArchive forum thread that also doesn't say the details, only that you need to "Copy the WMP8 Files and DLLs" (BUT WHICH ONES?????)
So it looks like no one on the internet can/would say the details. All I know is that some files need to be copied, and then WMP 8 would work on Win2k. Also, a meta tag on the smallvoid page says "Media Player 8 was included with Windows XP and never released as a standalone package."
oldversion.com has a download that is just the C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player folder packed up into a rar file. I don't know whether that's enough, but running dependency walker on wmplayer.exe reveals that it uses wmpui.dll and wmpcd.dll in system32. Going to system32, I see a lot of other files with their names starting with wmp or wmv. Just to be safe I copied them all.
The BetaArchive forum thread says that you need to install WMP 7 and 7.1 first. I tried with a fresh install of Windows 2000 and WMP 8 just wouldn't start, giving an error message "An internal application error has occurred." However, after I install WMP 7 or 7.1, it just crashes instead. I tried the following: 1) without the wmp* and wmv* files; 2) with only wmpcd and wmpui; 3) with all wmp* and wmv* files; neither worked.
Later I found not one but two unofficial installers through a YouTube video of all places. The description links to an "original" installer and a "remake". The "original" installer appears to be the one that smallvoid and bink.nu were providing, and also the one BetaWiki was referring to, as it disables system file protection, and doesn't include any skins or Like Humans Do. The "remake" includes skins and Like Humans Do and (apparently) a bunch of other good stuff. Both installers work, without needing to install WMP 7.0 or 7.1 beforehand. The files packaged in the installers are from SP0 (build 4477), not from SP1 (build 4487). The installers are made with IExpress; I can't find a way to reverse-engineer IExpress installers, or it would have been possible to package WMP 8 from non-English XP SP1.
According to BetaWiki:
