The software, which will be built into Vista, is designed to offer better synching with portable devices, make it easier to scroll through long libraries of music, and be tightly integrated with Urge, a new subscription and download music service co-developed by Microsoft and MTV Networks.
But while most people won’t be able to get their hands on Vista until next year, consumers will be able to get some of the media enhancements sooner. Microsoft is on track to release a Windows XP version of Windows Media Player 11 before the end of June, the company confirmed last week.
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It will be interesting to see what the WMP 11 Team minuses from the XP version. Likely missing features includes the Windows Vista Aero theme, possibly the filtered search technology thats a part of Vista and maybe even the new album views such as thumbnail and stacks.
The URGE music service is the major feature I believe Microsoft iis targeting towards getting people hooked with this release as early as possible instead continually losing them to Apple’s iTunes Music service.
Teching It Easy 
I myself won\’t upgrade to Vista \’till late 2008 so I\’m looking forward to this XP release of Windows Media Player 11. I love it, I have all my music and videos organized in it and it\’s been great for me. This summer won\’t be bad for my software expectations……Firefox 2.0 and WMP 11.