r/WindowsMediaPlayer

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to bring back some Y2K aesthetics by using a specific .wmz skin, but I'm hitting a massive wall on my M1 MacBook Air.

I know I can just use a full VM like Parallels or VMware to run Windows 11 ARM, but I really want to run WMP lightweight via Porting Kit / Wineskin, just like I successfully did with Winamp. However, WMP seems to be a completely different beast.

Here is what I’ve tried so far in Porting Kit:

1. Winetricks: Created a new custom port and used Winetricks to install wmp10.
   • Result: Silent crash. The executable (wmplayer.exe) just won't launch. No error logs pop up; it just dies in the background.
2. Direct .exe Installation: Created a clean wrapper (blank port), downloaded the WMP 10 offline installer, and tried to run the setup manually.
   • Result: Got an error saying, "This version of Windows Media Player can be installed only on computers running Windows XP (32-bit)."
3. Winecfg Tweak: Went into winecfg and changed the Windows version to Windows XP to bypass the setup check.
   • Result: Still got the exact same 32-bit error. I'm assuming this is because the Wineskin engine running on Apple Silicon is inherently 64-bit, and WMP 10 strictly demands a 32-bit environment.

Has any Wine/CrossOver wizard here successfully ported Windows Media Player to Apple Silicon? Or is it fundamentally impossible because WMP is too deeply tied to core Windows registries and legacy IE components?

Any workarounds or insights would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance 👍