| 7.0 (Me builtin) | 7.0 (installer) | 7.1 (installer) | 8 | 9 (installer) | 9 (xpsp2 builtin) | 10 (installer) | 10 (pro x64 builtin) | 10 (svr2003sp1 builtin) | 11 | 12 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9SeriesDefault | N | N | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N | N | N |
| Atomic | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Bluesky | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Canvas | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Classic | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Compact | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N |
| Corporate | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Goo | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Headspace | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Heart | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Iconic | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Miniplayer | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Miniplayer (8) | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Optik | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Pyrite | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| QuickSilver | N | N | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N | N | N |
| Radio | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Revert | N | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y |
| Roundlet | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Rusty | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Splat | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Toothy | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Windows Classic | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Windows XP | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| WinME | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
When WMP installer updates WMP, skins are only added (and maybe changed?), never removed.
The installer of WMP 9 actually contains two variants of the 9SeriesDefault skin. If installed on non-XP, the silver variant named 9SeriesDefault_.wmz would be installed instead of the blue variant named 9SeriesDefault.wmz. Similarly the full mode player UI would be in silver instead of blue.
QuickSilver is only installed with the WMP 9 installer on XP, even on XP SP2 and SP3 where WMP 9 is builtin.
In each version, there is a "builtin skin" that is not available as a wmz file. The resources that would normally be in a wmz file are instead stored in %windir%\system32\wmploc.dll, and can be extracted via a resource editor or 7-zip.
For WMP 7~8, the builtin skin is the unnamed default skin; the name is shown as "(Default Media Player)". The WMP 7 default skin is later named "Compact" and added to WMP 8~10 as a wmz file.
For WMP 9~12, the builtin skin is still the WMP 8 default skin, now named "Corporate". The WMP 9 default skin is a wmz file and is called "9SeriesDefault". It's shipped in WMP 9 and 10.
Normally, the skin definition file is an XML file with the wms extension, inside the wmz file. In WMP 7~8, the skin definition file of the builtin skin is stored in this same format. Since WMP 9, it's instead converted into a binary format with the wsz extension. Because the Corporate (WMP 8 default) skin definition file exists in WMP 8 in plain text form, it should be possible to reconstruct a wmz skin file (with some modifications) for use with WMP 7.x. Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure out all the necessary modifications; after changing all file paths in the xml, it partially works; the play button doesn't work, and the "ad banner" (seen in beck.asx) doesn't load. Alpha channel transparency in PNGs isn't supported in WMP 7 either.
The WMP 8 version fixed many XML syntax errors (mainly, redefinitions of fields), added some js and xml code, and replaced the original author information ("Designed by Ed Averett all rights reserved. Averett&Associates ©2000") with "Microsoft Corporation".
WMP 7.0 (WinMe builtin):
WMP 8:
The transparency color specification is gone, although WMP 8+ seems to be able to automatically determine the transparency color just fine.
WMP 7.0 (WinMe builtin):
WMP 8:
On WMP 12, when using the WMP 8 version of the skin, if you adjust one frequency, the surrounding frequencies will also be adjusted. This isn't true with the WMP 7 version of the skin.
On Windows XP (even on WMP 11), the Windows Media logo appears and immediately starts fading out when switching to this skin. On Vista and later this doesn't happen.
| Skin | Source |
|---|---|
| Atomic | WMP 7 Bonus Pack |
| Bluesky | |
| DigitalDJ | |
| Figure8 | |
| Luminescence | |
| Melvin | |
| Radio | |
| Plus! Aquarium | Microsoft Plus! for XP |
| Plus! da Vinci | |
| Plus! Nature | |
| Plus! Space | |
| Plus! Bionic Dot | Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition |
| Plus! Hard Boiled | |
| Plus! Hueshifter | |
| Plus! Mecha | |
| Plus! Plasma Ball | |
| Plus! Professional | |
| Plus! Pulsar | |
| Plus! Slimline |
"Atomic", "Bluesky" and "Radio" are later included in WMP 8 in XP. "Iconic" in WMP 8 is based on "DigitalDJ", with the library feature removed and other small adjustments.